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Photo. Brogi 



Michelangelo 

Unknown: Uflfizi 



IN AND OUT OF 

FLORENCE 

A NEW INTRODUCTION 
TO A WELL-KNOWN CITY 



BY 
MAX VERNON 

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY 

MAUD LANKTREE 

AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1910 



^ 



V 

r ^ ^ 



Copyright, igio, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
Published May, 1910 



€CI.A2656'^6 



tlTo iWp Wiiit 

MY GUIDE IN SEEING AND TELLING 



PREFATORY NOTE 

This Is a sort of guide-book or Introduction to 
Florence, both for those who actually are coming or 
have come to It, and for those who can come only In 
the spirit. And It tells something about Florence and 
the Florentines of to-day as well as about those glori- 
ous people of the earlier centuries. 

Finally, It tells also something of how one may be- 
come for oneself with least trouble and expense and 
most advantage and Interest temporarily a Florentine. 
Or at least It describes how this was really done, to 
the unreckonable great joy of the doers, not only 
through their days In Florence, but for what promises 
to be all of their days of memory hereafter. 

M. V. 



The author and publishers wish to express their appre- 
ciation of the courtesy of the well-known Florentine firms, 
the Fratelli Alinari (i, Via Strozzi) and G. Brogi (i, Via 
Tornabuoni), in permitting them to reproduce the copy- 
righted photographs used in this book. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. In Florence and House-Hunting . . . . i 

II. Our Villa 15 

III. Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping ... 30 

IV. Our Garden 49 

V. Our Village 6i 

VI. Beginning to See Florence: Piazza del Duomo . 73 

VII. The Churches: The Small Ones 90 

VIII. The Churches {continued) : The Larger Ones . 98 

IX. The Galleries: The Uffizi 113 

X. The Galleries {continued): The Pitti and Acca- 

demia 127 

XI. Castles and Palaces: Palazzo Vecchio and II 

Bargello 138 

XII. Castles and Palaces {continued) : The Palaces . 153 

XIII. Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls .... 167 

XIV. The Sculptors from the Hill-side Quarries . . 184 

XV. Outside the Walls: Feudal Castles and Fiesole . 200 

XVI. Outside the Walls {continued) : San Miniato, 

Certosa, Impruneta, Signa, and Malmantile . 215 

XVII. The Streets: Yesterday and To-day .... 236 

XVIII. Florentine Shops and Shopping 258 

XIX. Harvest Times 269 

vii 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER PACE 

XX. Florentine Excursions: 

I. Vallambrosa and over the Consuma Pass 286 

II. In the Casentino 297 

III. Prato and Pistoja 315 

IV. Lucca 330 

V. Pisa 340 

XXI. Books About Florence 348 

Index 365 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

I. DRAWINGS 

PAGE 

" Other times our way was across crowded, fascinating Ponte 

Vecchio " 6 

Antonetta, the flower woman. (After a photograph by the 

Author) 9 

" That last remaining stretch of old Florence bordering the 

water's edge" 13 

" The other side of the house gives on the garden terrace 
and is adorned by balconies and a profusion of climbing 
vines." (After a photograph by the Author) ... 22 

" The huge red brocca on the housetop." (After a photograph 

by the Author) 27 

" In little intimate groups are changing companies of potted 

plants." (After a photograph by the Author) • • • 53 

"An angled stone stair leads down to the lower garden." 

(After a photograph by the Author) 56 

" It seems to be, in May, wholly a garden of irises." (After 

a photograph by the Author) 57 

" They have their oxen fair in June." (After a photograph 

by the Author) 6+ 

"A most useful village fountain where all day long women 
and children fill their straw-covered fiaschi and exchange 
the gossip of the day " 66 

The church of the frati Olivetani at Settignano .... 70 

The Duomo and Campanile 7^ 

Santa Maria Novella, " the great Dominican church that still 

dominates the now almost deserted piazza" .... 103 

The cloisters of Santa Maria Novella 107 

" Michelozzo's beautiful little court with its winsome laughing 
boy of Verrocchio spurting water over his dolphin play- 
mate " 140 

" The noble Loggia dei Lanzi with its strenuous statues " . . 144 

"The Bargello is the ancient palace and stronghold of the 

podestas and chiefs of police of Florence" .... 146 

"That most fascinating room of all, the Bargello, that un- 
roofed room of the arcades, the well, the stair, and the 

j/^/n mi-spotted walls" 151 

ix. 



X List of Illustrations 

PACE 

In the Boboli Gardens 156 

Boboli Cypresses 157 

A corner lantern of the Palazzo Strozzi 159 

Palazzo Spini i6i 

The cloisters of San Marco 176 

" The prior's cell of Savonarola, with its few most intimate 

relics" 180 

San Niccolo, one of the " few noble gate towers of ancient 

days " 201 

" Up the hill toward Vincigliata." (After a photograph by 

the Author) 202 

The gate tower of Vincigliata 203 

" The tower of Castel di Poggio still stands in its full height 

and strength." (After a photograph by the Author) . . 205 
Castel di Poggio. (After a photograph by the Author) . . 207 
The Duomo of Fiesole and ruins of Roman Amphitheater . . 209 
" Starting from the Porta Romana at the beginning of the 

road to Rome" 216 

The Certosa, " seated nobly on a beautiful hill overlooking 

a laughing valley" 223 

Certosa has a " beautiful cloister garden, with a fascinating 

stone well in its middle " 224 

" Slow, white oxen were hauling the bigonie and casks to the 

wine-sheds." (After a photograph by the Author) . . 227 
" A cabbage bed, with beautiful great pottery vases set about 

in it." (After a photograph by the Author) .... 230 

A torch socket on a palace wall 237 

Giovanni da Bologna's "devil of the Mercato Vecchio " . . 241 
"The Mercato Nuovo where the big bronze boar keeps 

guard " 242 

Housetops and chimney-pots. (After a photograph by the 

Author) 245 

"Everywhere the six balls of the Medici appear" . 256 

On the Ponte Vecchio 265 

" The men seize the wisps one at a time and beat their grain- 
filled ends violently against the aja floor or against a 
stone bench or block, until most of the grains have 
flown out." (After a photograph by the Author) . 272 

A podere well. (After a photograph by the Author) . . 274 

"The relics of Romena " 294 

" The Casentino vines are trained to grow on p'toppi, small 
trees pruned to have low, broad, thick heads." (After a 

photograph by the Author) 296 

" Facing our garden gate was the great brown block of a 
castle (Poppi) with its high square tower." (After a 
photograph by the Author) 298 



List of Illustrations xi 

PAGE 

The entrance to Poppi Castle. (After a photograph by the 

Author) 299 

A street fountain in Stia 300 

The gate tower of Poppi Castle. (After a photograph by the 
Author) 301 

The court of Poppi Castle, " though much smaller, is com- 
parable in beauty and rough grace with that of the 
Florentine Bargello " 303 

"The angling stair and pillared rail, the stemmi on the walls 

and open balcony " of the court of Poppi Castle . . 304 

" Past contadinos' houses all hung over with drying gold and 

orange corn." (After a photograph by the Author) . . 305 

Camaldoli in its forest 309 

" St. Francis's famous monastery, set aloft in mountain cliffs 

and forest" 311 

The old well at La Verna. (After a photograph by the 

Author) 312 

A climbing path at La Verna. (After a photograph by the 

Author) 3H 

A bit of Tuscan countryside. (After a photograph by the 

Author) 318 

The patched walls of the ancient Palazzo Pretorio . . . 320 

" The pulpit is partly Michelozzo's, according to authority, 

but the reliefs must certainly be Donatello's own" . . 322 

"The striking, column-laden long fagade of San Giovanni 

Fuorcivitas " 324 

" Vasari's imposing dome and a lantern on Madonna dell' 

Umilta" 325 

The Duomo of Pistoja 326 

" The Duomo is one of a group of interesting structures facing 
on an open piazza whose most conspicuous feature is 
the high square campanile, or Torre del Podesta " . . 327 

The inclosed court of the Palazzo Pretorio 328 

" Until finally the host of flat-topped square towers of Lucca 

came into sight" 332 

"How fit It is that this old-world place should be completely 
inclosed by low bastioned walls, with dry moat without, 
and broad, grassy, tree-grown bank within "... 333 

The Duomo and Campanile of Lucca 335 

San Michele in Lucca 33^ 

IL PHOTOGRAPHS 

Michelangelo. Unknonvn: Uffizi Frontispiece 

PoNTE Santa Trinita .... 8 

Iron Gate in Wall near D'Annunzio's Villa .... 17 



xii List of Illustrations 

PAGE 

Settignano Road Through Olive Orchards 20*' 

Beppi and the Water Pails 32 

The Cypresses of Villa Gamberaia 68 

Cypresses on Settignano Hill Above Val d'Arno ... 71 

Singing Boys. Luca della RoblAa: Duomo Museum ... 83 

Virgin and St. Benedict. Filippino Lippi: Badia ... 91 

Detail of Altar. Benedetto da Rovezzano: Santa Trinita . 93 

Pulpit. Benedetto da Maiano: Santa Croce 98 

Detail of the Pulpit. Benedetto da Maiano: Santa Croce . 100 

Death of St. Francis. Giotto: Santa Croce .... 102 
Altar in the Chapel of the Sacrament. Desiderio da 

Settignano: San Lorenzo 109 

Tomb Monument of Lorenzo de' Medici. Michelangelo: 

San Lorenzo m 

The Birth of Venus. Botticelli: Uffizi 114 

Virgin and Child. Filippo Lippi: Uffizi 118 

Virgin, Child, St. John, and St. Anthony. Titian: Uffizi . i20n 

Adoration of the Magi. Botticelli: Uffizi 124'. 

The Concert. Giorgione: Pitti 127 \ 

The Granduca Madonna. Raphael: Pitti 129 . 

Pope Leo X and Cardinals Giulio de' Medici and Luigi de' 

Rossi. Raphael: Pitti 131 

The Ador.\tion. D. Ghirlandajo: Accademia .... 133 

Spring. Botticelli: Accademia 135 

The Deposition. Fra Angelico: Accademia 137 

The Virgin and Child. Michelangelo: Bargello .... 147 

Niccolo da Uzzano. Donatello: Bargello 149^ 

Madonna with Child. Luca della Rohhia: Bargello . . 151 
Lorenzo de' Medici .\s One of the Magi. Benozzo Gozzoli: 

Palazzo Riccardi 157 

The Last Supper. Andrea del Castagno: Santa Appollonia . 172 

The Annunciation. Fra Angelico: San Marco .... 179 

The Crucifi.xion. Perugino: S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi . 182 
Tomb Monument of Carlo NLarzuppini. Desiderio da 

Settignano: Santa Croce 185 

Detail of the To.mb Monument of Carlo Marzuppini. 

Desiderio da Settignano: Santa Croce 187 

Detail of the Tomb Monu.ment of Carlo Marzuppini. 

Desiderio da Settignano: Santa Croce 189 

Tomb Monument of Leonardo Bruini. Bernardo Rossellino: 

Santa Croce 191 

Altar. Mino da Fiesole: Sant' Ambrogio . • -193 

Tomb Monu.ment of Ugo, Marchese di Toscana. Mino da 

Fiesole: Badia •195 

Door of the Sala dell' Orologia. Benedetto da Maiano: 

Palazzo Vecchio ^97 



List of Illustrations xiii 

PAGE 

Altar. Benedetto da Rovezzano: Santa Trinita .... 199 
Tomb Monument of Bishop Leonardo Salutati. Mino da 

Fiesole: Duomo of Fiesole 211 

Altar with Virgin and Saints in Adoration. Mino da 

Fiesole: Duomo of Fiesole 213 

Florence from the Viale dei Colli 217 

Tomb Monument of Cardinal Jacob of Portugal. Antonio 

Rossellino: San Miniato 220 

Malmantile (15th Century) 234 

Detail of Tomb Monument of Cino de' Sinibaldl Cellino 

di Nese: Duomo at Pistoja 327 

Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto. Jacopo delle Quercia: Duomo 

of Lucca 334 

Duomo, Leaning Tower, and Baptistry at Pisa .... 343 



CHAPTER I 
IN FLORENCE AND HOUSE-HUNTING 

ONE may well be disposed to risk much for one's 
first glimpse of Florence, but hardly a wife. 
And Rowena's symptoms, violent and astounding 
ever since passing Prato, had become of a sudden 
truly alarming. When finally she lunged far out 
over the drop glass in the compartment door and 
with a manner of Columbus discovering America, 
cried out, "Florence!" I could no longer restrain 
myself, but frantically clutched both hands full of 
skirt and dragged back for dear life. Also I wanted 
a turn at looking out myself. 

It is not the lifting dome of Brunelleschi that one 
sees first on approaching Florence, as it is Michel- 
angelo's great egg of St. Peter's that is first descried 
on the road to Rome. It is rather the egregiously 
re-made Galileo tower thrusting itself heavily sky- 
ward from Arcetri hill. It was this sad reminder of 
Florentine decadence, this sacred relic sold by the 
city to a restoration-mad collector and seller of 
antiquities, that gave Rowena the signal to cry, 
"Florence!" 

" Florence ! And the magnificence and passionate 
agitation of Italy's prime sends its fragrance towards 
us like a blossom-laden bough." Florence, Mecca 



2 In Florence and House-Hunting 

of that sect of believers, persistent even in these 
breathless days of machines and money-madness, the 
believers in the reality of the ideal. Florence, reli- 
quary, holding such choice treasures of the beati of 
art and poetry that hundreds of thousands come to 
press their reverent lips to its surface. Florence, 
adorned, inlaid, canopied cradle of the noblest of the 
family of creative man reborn. " Why be aston- 
ished," asks reverent Hopital, " by the magic that 
Florence exercises on cultivated spirits? It attracts 
them by all that captivates the imagination, appeals 
to the intelligence, makes palpitate the heart. Its 
history is a little world where the greatest interests of 
earth have contended, where all the passions of man 
have burned. Its science and literature have moved 
all there is of good and bad in us; and finally its 
art is, if not the most perfect, at least the most in- 
tellectual and most immaterial, and that which gives 
our thinking faculties the most powerful stimulus." 
From Nature's majesty in Switzerland and her 
rippling, glinting beauty at Bellagio; from the en- 
chantment of Venice fairyland, and the soft luxury 
of earth's brown lap in Arno valley, one comes well- 
attuned to Florence and eager to see and feel her 
achievement of spirit and genius. Even on one visit- 
ing her for the first time and guiltless of any knowl- 
edge of her beyond a vague idea of the eminent role 
she has played in the eternal human tragedy, Flor- 
ence makes from the first an ineffaceable impression. 
She is an old city, this City of the Lily, but she still 
lives in all her grace of form and color. She is like 
a flower, some one has said, which, when fully blown, 



In Florence and House-Hunting 3 

instead of withering on its stalk, turned as it were into 
stone. And she is such a concentration of the achieved 
things of the spirit, such a materialization of inspired 
visions put into enduring form and color; she is so 
immediately revealing and satisfying! In Rome 
one sightsees through the centuries; in Venice, one 
dreams in a color-shifting fairyland made musical by 
moving water; in Florence one lives in the Italy that 
gave the world a new life. One merges into the 
very atmosphere of inspiration; one becomes as much 
of a poet and artist as he ever can be. 

But one cannot live on wonder and inspiration 
alone. Even John in the desert land had his locusts 
and wild honey. The pilgrim arriving in Florence, 
the goal of his longings and hopes ; this pilgrim, climb- 
ing out of the express from Bologna, has first of every- 
thing to face the sordid earthly considerations of a 
place to lay his head and food to fill his mouth. 

A hotel for a few days, a pension for a few weeks, 
a house or apartment for a few months. We were 
for months and a house. But most arrivals are for 
days or weeks. The hotels most frequented are those 
along the Arno, especially those that stretch along the 
north bank from the Ponte Santa Trinita to the 
Piazza Manin. The best hotels are here, with others 
good but cheaper. And in the same general region are 
many pensions. But when a city is completely run to 
pensions, as Florence is, no quarter will hold them all. 
There are many desirable ones out in the clean new 
quarter around the English cemetery; perhaps it will 
be less disconcerting to say around the Piazza Dona- 



4 In Florence and House-Hunting 

tello. The artistic and the literary rather gather 
here. 

It is a common belief that the hotels and pensions 
on the other side of the Arno are cheaper, and per- 
haps, the pensions anyway, as good. So, if you are 
willing to walk across a bridge for most of your 
sightseeing you may save a lira a day. And who is 
not willing to walk across a city bridge? 

Bridges of London ! bridges of Paris ! bridges 
of Florence ! Fascinating, unique Ponte Vecchio ! 
Graceful Santa Trinita ! Historic alle Grazie I 
What time you will waste in crossing these bridges ! 
You will come too late to the church with the frescoed 
chapel; it has just closed for midday. You will miss 
the tram for Fiesole; ten minutes of waiting. You 
will get to your pension tardy for the table-d'hote; 
the soup, never hot, will now not even be warm. 

But what this lost time will have won ! Sometimes 
we loitered on alle Grazie to hang over the railing 
and look north to the Fiesole and Settignano hills 
with their wondrous colors of twilight as the sun 
slanted across their climbing villages, their clustered 
villas, their silver-gray slopes of olive. And we 
mused, as we loitered, over a history of seven cen- 
turies, for the piers and arches under our feet were 
built in 1237. Originally called Rubaconte in honor 
of the Podesta of Florence at the time of its building, 
the bridge gets its present name from a tabernacle 
of the Madonna delle Grazie which was in the little 
church that used to stand at one end of it. About 
fifty years after the building of the bridge occurred 
the greatest historical event in its memory: the cele- 



In Florence and House-Hunting 5 

bration of the ephemeral peace between the Guelphs 
and Ghibellines arranged by Pope Gregory X on his 
journey through Florence to the Council of Lyons. 

"At the end of July, 1273, the Florentines as- 
sembled on the banks of the Arno, which at this 
point broadened into a sort of lake, to witness the 
Pope, who, followed by his Court and accompanied 
by King Charles of Naples and the Emperor Bal- 
dovino of Constantinople with their imposing reti- 
nues, appeared on the middle of the bridge, blessed 
the crowd, and obliged the opposing parties to kiss 
and embrace, subsequently ending the ceremonies of 
the day by laying the cornerstone of the church called 
San Gregorio della Pace. 

" The impression produced by the magnificence of 
this solemn function and the manner in which it took 
place remained for a long time; and the church of 
Saint Gregory of Peace existed for many centuries, 
even to our own time. But the peace which it was 
intended to commemorate lasted exactly four days, 
after which Florence again became divided by the 
quarrels and fights of the Guelph and Ghibelline 
factions, and Pope Gregory, discouraged and morti- 
fied, left the city." — Carocci. 

Through several centuries the bridge carried numer- 
ous little houses built on its piers. These included 
six little chapels, three small convents, and several 
picturesque birdcage-like houses, in one of which lived 
Benedetto Menzini, a satirical poet of much reputa- 
tion in the seventeenth century. In one of the con- 



6 In Florence and House-Hunting 

vents were " confined for education, from choice or 
political motives, princesses of some great Italian 
families. Among them were the celebrated Caterina 
Sforza, who died there, Caterina and Eleonora Cybo 
di Messa, Lelia Orsini di Pitigliano, and the unfortu- 
nate Camilla Martelli, wife of Cosimo I dei Medici." 
Other times our way was across crowded, fascinat- 
ing Ponte Vecchio. It was on this bridge that Cosimo 




" Other times our way was across crowded, fascinating Ponte 
Vecchio." 



dei Medici found Camilla Martelli, his unfortunate 
wife, who soon got shut up in the convent on alle 
Grazie. And it was at the south end that Ariosto 
lived for half a century in the Hospice of the Knights 
of Malta. And there occurred the murder of young 
Buondelmonte, that set off the long cruel struggle 
of the Whites and the Blacks. 

But it will be Ponte Vecchio's interest of to-day 
that will overpower most of us; the solid rows on 
either side, except for a short way in the middle, of 
little houses in which the Florentine goldsmiths and 
jewel workers, disciples of Cellini, contrive and dis- 



In Florence and House-Hunting 7 

play their wares. The fascination of those little 
shops; the seizing scenery of those windows; the 
enticing ways of these politest of present-day Floren- 
tines ! There is a current rumor that wherever in 
Florence you may get false wares under fair names, 
here on the old bridge there is honor among — 
jewelers. What is called ruby is not " recon- 
structed"; what is declared emerald is not " dou- 
blette." Let us believe it. And such delicate manip- 
ulation of gold and silver; such revealing display 
of the blandishment of precious stones and pearl, of 
coral and colored glass, will not often elsewhere come 
under one's eye. 

In the little open space in the middle of the bridge 
we may turn our eyes from the glitter of jewels to the 
fascinations of the sliding river, the distant hills, 
the guarding walls of old buildings that follow its 
banks. Here there is set a bust of the patron saint 
of all the inhabitants of the bridge, Benvenuto Cel- 
lini, that swaggering master-jeweler and master-wit of 
the olden days. If one would see Cellini as gold- 
smith instead of sculptor, he should spend an hour 
or two in that lower room in the Pitti Palace where 
are the golden cups, finger basins, and the dinner 
service of the Medici. 

Just under Cellini's bust there occasionally sits an 
old woman with a tray of little wooden cages too 
small for birds, but which house, nevertheless, a 
lively lot of musicians. They are singing crickets. 
Like the Japanese, the Italians have killed many of 
their wild songbirds and supplement their field music 
with that from cages. Perhaps it was from this need 



8 In Florence and House-Hunting 

that came the inspiration of one of the Ponte Vecchio 
wonder-workers to devise the glittering marvel of 
bird-song shown us one day. 

It was a bejeweled casket which when opened 
let spring up a tiny bird figure, resplendently draped 
in fragments of humming-birds' feathers, and pour- 
ing forth from vibrating beak and bobbing head a 
clear and liquid little song. We let our curiosity 
even go the length of asking the price of this toy. 
And then we watched with awe-struck eyes as the 
gemmy thing was put carefully back into the steel 
safe. 

Finally, the Ponte Santa Trinita, the beautiful 
bridge, with its perfectly satisfying curve and line. 
Seen from the Ponte Vecchio, from Lung' Arno Ac- 
ciajuoli or Guicciardini, or from the roadway winding 
down from San Miniato to Porta San Niccolo, it 
proves in how simple a thing, just a curve, just a 
group of lines, genius can show itself. 

Whenever we crossed it we bought a few flowers 
from Antonetta, the lavender woman. You can see 
in her face the beauty she once had. Four years 
ago, Rowena knew her a beautiful woman. She 
added to the workingman husband's wages the soldi 
got from selling flowers. And there were many 
soldi; for she was so joyous and smiling, so polite 
and friendly, that all who often crossed the bridge 
knew her. The tourists kodaked her and she was the 
flower woman of Florence. 

Then the husband died, and the soldi for flowers 
and from the kodaking tourists were all there were 
for her and the two children; one a crippled girl, 



In Florence and House-Hunting 



the other a hunchback son. Her face took on a look 
of seriousness. So the tourists stopped kodaking her. 
Then the girl cripple fell into a wasting, lingering 
Illness. The flower woman had to stay at home much 
of the time to care 
for her, and the 
regular patrons 
turned to other ven- 
ders. Then the lit- 
tle girl died and she 
could again give all 
her time to flower- 
selling. But it was 
too late to gather 
her patrons again; 
and she had lost her 
old place in the line 
at the supply gar- 
dens. So she gave 
up bouquets and 
fresh roses and car- 
nations and began 
to sell lavender. Then the hunchback boy, who had 
always earned a few soldi, dropped one day into 
the cloudy waters of the river that ran under the 
bridge. 

Antonetta's face to-day is no longer beautiful; her 
joyousness is gone. She lives in a stanzaccio that 
costs her ten dollars a year for rent. She eats — what 
does she eat? And she pays this rent and for that 
which she eats by selling lavender, sometimes flowers; 
" elle meurt de I'hiver en of rant le printemps." In 




Antonetta, the flower woman. 



lo In Florence and House-Hunting 

four years so much has happened, all of it bad, and 
she is trying, perhaps, when she stands unnoticing, to 
solve the problem of a God who is all-kind and a life 
that seems all unkindness. 

Whether you choose your hotel or pension on this 
side or that side of the river, one thing you will find 
out speedily. That is, that the estimate of prices 
given you before leaving home by the friend who 
spent a month in Florence four or five years ago will 
have to be revised. The pensions are in this year, 
1909, at least one lira a day more expensive than 
they were in 1904, and by another five years they 
will hkely have added another lira to the tariff. 
Still, one can live to-day very comfortably and de- 
cently in good Florence pensions for five lire (one 
dollar) a day, and in better ones, of course, for six 
or seven or eight lire. The hotels make pension 
rates from nine to twelve to fourteen Hre a day. 

If you Hve long in any pension, however good, you 
will still have need of knowing where you can get a 
good cup of coffee or chocolate with biscotti; or 
perhaps a glass of German beer with a club sandwich. 
The restaurants and cafes of Florence are not such 
attractive or admirable places as those of Rome or 
Venice or Milan. Where, indeed, in any European 
city will one find a better cafe than the Nazionale in 
Rome, or a more attractive one than Florian's on St. 
Mark's? But with Giacosa's and Doney's restau- 
rants on the Via Tornabuoni, the more Bohemian 
Lapi's and Paoli's tucked away in their side streets, 
and the Gambrinus and Reinlnghaus cafes on the 
Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Florence can very well 



In Florence and House-Hunting ii 

help out one's pension fare by anything from an ice 
to a dinner. And to pick and choose, plate in hand, 
before the open case of varied and wonderful pasti 
in a bakery like Luigi Gilli's, is a special kind of 
joy that comes only next to the successful running 
down of an out-of-the-way Botticelli. 

If one likes seeing a touch of Bohemia, or what 
seems to be that, as he seeks his five-o'clock rest and 
refreshment, he can take an outside seat at the Rei- 
ninghaus, more familiarly called Jacquetta Rossa, or 
Red Jacket, by reason of the golf jackets affected 
by the waiters. Here gather most of the pallid faces 
with burning bright eyes, the long hair, the unusual 
hats and clothes, and the speakers of ultra-foreign 
tongues, that Florence has to exhibit. Art students 
and musicians, poets and near-poets, anarchists plot- 
ting for the woe of monarchs and the weal of the 
proletariat, make this their picturesque rendezvous. 

The thing about any European cafe in good situa- 
tion, that is, on a public square or populous streets, 
that makes it worth more than its merely material 
refreshment to the tourist, is, of course, the revela- 
tion it makes of the native people and their visitors. 
Idling at a cafe table on the sidewalk with eyes open 
is to assist at the unrolling of a panorama of the life of 
a foreign folk. The faces and dress, the speech and 
gesture, the wit or stupidities, the customs and be- 
havior of all sorts and conditions of people are 
revealed with the winking swiftness and staccato em- 
phasis of a cinematograph. 

Perhaps you are not in Florence for days or weeks, 
but for months. Then you will want as we did, not 



12 In Florence and House-Hunting 

a hotel or even a pension, but housekeeping apart- 
ments, or better, a villa beyond the barriers. To 
satisfy this need one must inquire, inquire. Ask of 
all acquaintances, of all Florentines you come into 
speaking contact with, of pension mistresses, of shop- 
keepers, of your barber and your banker. And, of 
course, go to the agents. Their names are in the 
Florence Herald, the English newspaper of the 
Anglo-American colony. Also there are always ad- 
vertisements in this paper of apartments and villas to 
let. Take tram rides and walking trips about town 
and out of town, watching for the " to let " signs. 
And someway, finally, there will turn up just what 
is wanted. 

There are always some apartments to be had along 
the Arno, and if one's stay is not to run into late sum- 
mer or early fall, they are, if for no other reason than 
the view, perhaps the most desirable. Friends of 
ours have a dainty set of rooms on the top floor of a 
building on Lung' Arno Acciajuoli. From their little 
balcony — I should pay the whole rent of the suite for 
that balcony and one sleeping room ! — what incom- 
parable seeing! Straight down, the green Arno, with 
its bridges, a skiff here and there, perhaps a pair of 
white four-oar shells with crews in bright-colored 
jerseys. Across, that last remaining stretch of old 
Florence bordering the water's edge. Everywhere 
else along the river the old houses have been torn 
down and the Lung' Arno promenades built in. It 
is a fascinating block of angular, irregular, small- 
windowed, towering soiled whitish and yellow walls, 
behind which the little furnaces of the silversmiths 



In Florence and House-Hunting 13 

are roaring and scores of bare-armed, deft-fingered 
workmen are hammering and beating, drawing out 
and twisting the shining silver strands in a haze of 
heat and smoke. And then looking up the river into 
the face of San Miniato del Monte and on beyond 
and above to the hills, and finally to the mountain 
crests by Vallombrosa ; and the other way down the 
river with Bellosguardo and Oliveto for near back- 
ground and the high Carrara in the far distance. 




That last remaining stretch of old Florence bordering the 
water's edge." 



Think of the lights of morning and evening on the 
pictures in this gallery ! 

But better than three or five rooms in town is a 
house of one's own with a garden and a pony stable; 
a villa on a hill-slope above Florence, in a plantation 
of olive and vine. And so we set out in search for 
a villa. The little rest of this chapter is the tale of 
Rowena's success. For she did the searching and she 
found the villa. 

There were villas too large and too expensive; 
others too small, and one for a song; just the taxes 



14 In Florence and House-Hunting 

apparently, but with drawbacks, of course. Finally, 
and sooner than you would think, the exactly right 
one appeared. The discovery was by a friend; the 
consummation by an agent. The business details 
were an agreement to rent for at least three months 
and payment In advance for the rent for these months; 
the necessity of taking on the gardener attached to 
the place and paying his wages at an already fixed 
rate; the assisting at the making of, and the signed 
agreement to, an Inventory of all the household fur- 
nishings; the waiving of any furnishings in the way 
of linen and table silver (these we had to rent spe- 
cially), and the waiving of any rights to the vege- 
tables or fruits that the garden might produce unless 
from seeds of our own planting, but a recognition of 
our rights to all the flowers. We might, I presume, 
have picked all the pear blossoms, but we could not 
pick the pears if we let the flowers stay on the trees ! 
To all these matters we agreed; paid our three 
months' rent with a commission to the agent — it seems 
the lessee and not the lessor pays the commission over 
here — and faced the business of finding servants and 
establishing ourselves. 



CHAPTER II 
OUR VILLA 

MRS. ROSS, the active authoress who has 
compiled a voluminous red book called 
" Florentine Villas," as well as another about Floren- 
tine palaces, catalogues twenty-three really and truly 
villas of the castle or palace type that inhabit the 
hilltops and slopes girdling Florence. All these ap- 
proved villas, with perhaps one or two exceptions, 
date from the fifteenth century or earlier, and in their 
histories the names of emperors, popes, and cardinals 
stand out in imposing relief. Hardly less conspicu- 
ous, and much more familiar and enhancing, are the 
names of many of the poets and painters whose mem- 
ories and priceless bequests of song and picture and 
marble make Florence the magic city she is. That the 
present owners of these villas are mostly English- 
men and Germans of less conspicuous claims to fame 
only tells of the decadence of Italy, and need detract 
not the least from the abiding interest of the storied 
palaces. 

But these twenty-three villas are in truth but a 
tithe of the reality. There are hosts of others, less 
princely in their proportions, perhaps, and more un- 
certain in their fragrance of fame, but none the less 
beautiful and not infrequently of most interesting 

15 



i6 Our Villa 

association. Their gleaming white and pink walls 
rise well above the olive orchards and vineyards that 
cover all the hill-slopes and valley floor about Flor- 
ence. There are literally hundreds of them, each 
with its own beauty of scene and setting, its own 
vagaries of tower or crenelated wall, loggia or 
carved buttress. 

And each sits in a garden; whether on hilltop 
or dropping slope or in the flat-floored valley, there is 
always the lush growth of tree and shrub and bedded 
plants; the garden of walks and arbors, terraces and 
bowers; of quaint bits of stone stairway and wall, 
fountains and grotto pools. And hardly one that 
does not rear beside its cool white walls a group, a 
row, perhaps only a pair, of dark steeple-like cypresses. 
As we stand on the roof-terrace of our house and let 
our eyes range the miles of girdling hill-slopes about 
the nestling city, these countless white villa spots, 
with their guarding sentinel black cypresses, dot the 
whole landscape. 

I have said that many of the uncatalogued villas 
have their associations interesting or dear to the visi- 
tor in Florence. It is very true. Not a giant's 
stone's throw from our own perching home on Setti- 
gnano hill-side is a modest gray stone house with square 
battlement tower which once belonged to the Buona- 
rotti family, and where the great Michelangelo 
himself " drew in with his foster-mother's milk the 
mallet and chisel with which he afterward carved 
his statues." For this nurse mother was the daugh- 
ter of a stone-cutter. On the floor of this villa the 
boy Michel drew his first picture. 




Photo. Author 

Iron Gate in Wall near D'Annunzio's Villa 



Our Villa 17 

Indeed, we neighbor abundantly with distinction. 
A few rods further down the hill-side from the old 
Buonarotti house is the former country home of' 
Eleonora Duse, with its quiet inclosed garden sweet 
with roses. It was her fancy to have only roses in the 
garden and clambering up the rough walls to her 
deep-set windows. In one of these stood a tall vase 
with a single white rose whenever the maestra was in 
residence. What a pretty conceit for a house flag ! 
The house is low and rambling, looking rather like 
an unusually large contadino's house than the more 
pretentious villa. In its door-post is cut " La 
Porzuincola." 

A high-walled narrow roadway, dropping deviously 
down the hill, runs by the house and is opened on by 
the broad front doors. Just across the roadway from 
these doors is a beautiful small iron gate let into the 
stone wall of the adjoining podere (farm), with a 
bright-colored little Holy Mary set into the heavy 
stone cross-piece above the gate. On the podere 
side of the gate is cut " Pensa! " This podere is 
leased by Gabriele d'Annunzio, and in his absence 
is mostly given over to a horde of pampered dogs of 
a dozen breeds. They have their own cuoco and 
cameriere (cook and waiter), says our Beppi, and 
Beppi knows. He knows the household intimacies of 
every home on Settignano hill, as does every Set- 
tignanese, of course. On the posts of the great iron 
gate that guards the dark tree-grown garden of the 
establishment of dogs and literature are cut "Noli 
me tangere " — this under the bell-pull — and " Cave 
Canes ac Dominum" — on the other post. There 



i8 Our Villa 

seems to be a breath of irreverence in the genius of 
Italian literary decadence ! 

A strong contrast of association is furnished by the 
very next house in the same podere with d'Annunzio's 
establishment. This is the Villa Viviani, a high, 
square, pink-walled affair overlooking Florence and 
facing Fiesole and the rugged Apuan Alps in the 
distant west. It was in this villa that Mark Twain 
finished " Pudd'nhead Wilson," that best, because 
most human thing of his, and wrote in its preface: 
" Given under my hand this 2d day of January, 1 893, 
at the Villa Viviani, village of Settignano, three miles 
back from Florence on the hills; the same certainly af- 
fording the most charming view to be found on this 
planet and with it the most dream-like and enchanting 
sunsets to be found on any planet or even in any solar 
system." 

If we do not tramp the hill-slopes for distinguished 
villas, but stay at home and sit on our roof-terrace 
under the shadow of the big red-brown water hrocca 
that holds our acqiia da hagna, and gives our villa 
its name, still we find no end of sights to thrill us. 

Along the curve of the hill-ring toward Fiesole our 
eyes follow over soft gray olives and tall close-robed 
somber cypresses to houses where history inhabits; 
where picture and poetry germed and blossomed; 
houses resonant with memories of great men and 
women. 

There with its crenelated skyline is the very house 
where Boccaccio's gay youths and ladies amorose told 
their tales of love, while the death chants of the 
black-cowled Misericordia rose dolorous from plague- 



Our Villa 19 

struck Florence below. And just beyond is a cypress- 
guarded villa that belonged to the great Medici 
themselves : a house in which poets and painters 
lived with those extraordinary patrons of the arts, 
those merchant princes whose life was for so long the 
very life of Florence. 

Among these older houses are newer ones with their 
names of more modern times. Landor's villa, Sal- 
vini's home, Hawthorne's across the valley, and the 
others. A score might be catalogued to tell of the 
drawing and holding power these Florentine hill- 
slopes have had, and still have, over the sensitive 
spirits of art and song. 

But this chapter was really to be a most specifically 
descriptive and practical one, to serve as introduction 
to this tale of how one lives modestly in a villino at 
Florence. It was to tell of the outsides and insides, 
and the conveniences and inconveniences, the differ- 
ences and similarities of a Florentine dwelling when 
compared with " home." So there is necessity of a 
sort of word-picture of a villa; a catalogue of dimen- 
sions and relations, and an inventory of parts and 
appurtenances. As a matter of fact, such an inventory, 
even to each stray unbound Tauchnitz in its book- 
shelves and fugitive cork-screw and can-opener in the 
pantries, has to be made out and mutually agreed 
to as correct by contracting owner and lessee, and 
has to be faced with full seriousness and responsibility 
by the lessee at the time of his surrender of the 
premises to the owner. 

Our villa is a house and garden, a pony stable, 
and a gardener's lodge. And it has a stone laundry- 



20 Our Villa 

tub that is the most picturesque thing about the 
premises — at least it is when Marina, the lovely 
laundress — the phrase is as true as it is alliterative — 
is bending over it. The villa lies on the up and down 
road that winds along the hill-side from Settignano 
village to Villa Gamberaia, the show place of the 
whole Settignano hill. This little stretch of roadway 
from the village to our gate is not the least of our 
joys. It dips and lifts its curving way along the 
verge of the hill lined by low stone walls, one of 
which grows higher and higher as we near the villa, 
and is crested for many rods with climbing roses; and 
gives from every yard of its way the most wonderful 
views of the Arno and Florence in its hill-rimmed cup. 
The villa was formerly a group of three contadinos' 
(farmers') houses, which through the persistent and 
expensive efforts of two successive English owners 
have been merged into one. One can pick out the 
original units with some accuracy by standing on the 
roof-terrace and attending to the levels and directions 
of the various parts of the tiled roof. But the 
merger of the houses has been a successful one and 
there are no indications of faction or falling apart 
of the original trio. One of them, at least, is of 
decent age, as a sort of cornerstone is inscribed 
" 1639." An inscribed plate put up by his nephew on 
the highway side of the house attests that in one of 
them lived, a generation or two ago, a painter of some 
note, one Malatesta. The wife of this nephew is now 
our teacher of Italian, and thus do we curiously main- 
tain the association of our villa with the family of 
Malatesta. 



Our Villa 21 

The three-in-one house is long and sinuous. Long 
is surely the right name for a house with one hundred 
and sixty feet of running length and less than twenty- 
five feet of width in its widest and but seventeen in 
its narrowest part. What I mean by sinuosity in our 
house is its curious habit of following the curve of 
the road along which it extends its ten rods of length; 
inside it doesn't seem exactly to curve, but an analysis 
of the many little offsets and insets in the roadside 
wall, and the total lack, of correspondence of the 
longitudinal partitions, show how the fitting of the 
house to the curving road has been accomplished. 
As the house wall is the actual boundary of the 
highway it is given two special means of keeping out 
the noise, of which there isn't much anyway, and the 
dust, of which there is less. These are, first, a com- 
parative absence of windows, and second, an unusual 
thickness. The walls are, of course, as are all here, 
of stone and brick overlaid with a smoothish coat of 
cement. 

There is a part of this face that no owner of the 
house may own. This is a small shrine let into the 
wall and under it a narrow projecting stone bench 
built into one of the rectangular juttings. The bench 
for the weary wayfarer and shrine for the passing 
pilgrim are appurtenances of the commune and not 
of us, nor of our landlord. It is in this shrine that 
our servants burn candles for us on holy days, and 
place flowers to be blessed when the village priest and 
his candle-bearing, singing procession of women and 
children comes along to bless the roadside shrines. 
The other side of the house, which is the south side 



22 



Our Villa 



and the down-hill looking side, is anything but a 
blank white wall. It gives on the garden terrace, is 
full of windows and doors, and is adorned by bal- 
conies and a profusion of climbing vines. Its outjut- 
tings are much more pronounced, taking on the char- 
acter almost of " ells " and all of the ground-floor 




" The other side of the house gives on the garden terrace and 
is adorned by balconies and a profusion of climbing vines." 



doors, which are large and double and open from 
every room, have two or three stone steps leading up 
to them. 

Inside there is the only possible arrangement of 
rooms in a house ten rods long by one to one and a 
half wide. Each floor — the house is full two stories — 
simply has a longitudinal series of successive rooms 
with occasional narrow corridors running along by 



Our Villa 23 

their side, in the widest, that is, least narrow, parts 
of the house. You cannot lose yourself. There 
are no mysterious side trails. You keep on ahead 
or turn around and stroll back along the same path. 
But it isn't monotonous, because, as I have said, the 
house is sinuous and the trail is a gently winding one. 
The whole general make-up suggests a two-story 
python with interior arrangements for human habita- 
tion. 

There are in all twenty rooms, counting each least 
one, such as the bathroom. These rooms are equally 
divided in number between the two floors; but the 
arrangement of them below and above stairs does not 
correspond at all. Underneath, too, is a cellar con- 
taining a room with racks for wine and a never- 
failing well; the department of fluids. In the old 
days this well belonged with the shrine and the stone 
bench outside the house to the commune. In fact the 
shrine and the bench are the outward visible signs 
and relics of the well, which once was public and 
furnished water to many generations of fiaschi- 
bringing old wives and children; but now is private 
and perhaps the most valuable single asset of the 
Villa Brocca. Through all the summer long was 
needed only a cry to Beppi of '^ Acqiia fresca, per 
piacere," and the glasses were soon poured from the 
dripping copper pail and the full draughts of cold 
clear water drunk thankfully down. And this kind 
of water is not the most easily got thing anywhere 
and at any time in Italy. 

On the ground floor is, first, the salone, or parlor, 
with parquetry floor, timbered ceiling painted in 



24 Our Villa 

brown and gray-green and bossed in full gilt, gray- 
green walls, chimney-corner fireplace, and large 
double doors opening south on the garden 
terrace. One of the windows is a high, pretty, 
iron-bound square with casement doors of leaded 
glass. 

From this room a narrow tiled corridor runs along 
the north wall to the main entrance hall. Off this cor- 
ridor opens the salott'uw, which we used as study and 
smoking-room. It also, like the salone, has double 
doors giving on the garden. The floors of salone, 
corridor, and salottino are all at slightly different 
levels, a condition common as well to all other parts 
of this curiously assembled house. 

On the entrance hall, which gives on the garden, 
opens a bathroom. A corridor runs from the hall 
to the dining-room and a curving stair rises from it 
to the second floor. This stairway, with great flower 
pots of dwarf lemon trees and azaleas on its landings 
and a beautiful pair of long Persian shawls depending 
from the upper balustrade, is very attractive. From 
the corridor there opens darkly under the stair an 
odd little door into the roadway along the sinuous 
north wall of the house. But we rarely use this 
entrance, preferring the big wistaria-covered garden 
gate at the east end of the house. 

The dining-room is long and narrow, with high 
timbered ceiling and tiled floor. All the floors, in- 
deed, except the parquetry one of the salone, are 
of tile. And the windows of this room, as well as its 
great double doors, open on the garden terrace. The 
view from the table out into the blooming garden. 



Our Villa 25 

and the soft air and sweet fragrance that come in 
from it, add a rare and special flavor to the 
dishes. 

From the dming-room opens the serving-room, 
with a curious little cold pantry built into the thick 
north wall of the house and led up to by a narrow 
little stair of four steps. Next comes the kitchen, 
with timbered ceiling, tiled floor, and windows on the 
terrace. From it rises a stairway to the children's 
rooms and balcony on the second floor, and doors 
open from it, one to a brick-tiled sort of outer open 
court jutting off the terrace, and another into a serv- 
ants' dining-room, where Maria, Marina, and Beppi 
have their sociable meals. That is, they do when 
they do not have them out on the brick-floored court 
or in their terrace arbor with its stone table and 
stone seat benches. 

Beyond this servants' room are two store and fuel 
rooms opening on to the brick court. As the pony 
stable is down in the lower garden, and it would be 
too much trouble to run the cart up and down from 
this lower garden to the upper terrace with its 
entrance gate giving on the road, the owner of the 
villa used one of these storerooms for the cart. 

So much, then, for the first floor. We can run 
along the second more rapidly. 

First, over the salone, a beautiful large bedroom, 
Rowena's room, of course, a comfortable, airy, joy- 
ous room with dark blue-gray walls and whitish ceil- 
ing; a window in the north or road-side wall, iron- 
barred, heavily shuttered, and two large double case- 
ment windows in the south or garden wall, opening 



26 Our Villa 

on a beautiful little vine-clad balcony that runs all the 
length of this and the next room. 

From this room a narrow tiled corridor runs along 
the north wall to the stair landing with a door open- 
ing off into the next sleeping-room, which also has 
double casement windows opening on the south wall 
balcony over the terrace. 

From this stair landing doors open into a small 
guest bedroom and into another large one and also 
into a vine-clad stone stairway leading to the roof- 
terrace. Beyond the guest bedrooms are children's 
and servants' rooms, to which access from outside 
is got by a bacl<. stairway. Along the south or ter- 
race side of these rooms, and around the corner along 
the east wall of the last one, runs a pretty little 
play place on the east end of the house. 

Such is the house. And it is the house unadorned. 
As a matter of fact, what with heavy furniture, East- 
ern rugs and hangings, and flowers and dwarf shrubs 
in all the rooms, and vines about all the windows, 
and pots of green and color on all the door-steps, it 
is a house very much adorned. And with bathroom 
and fireplaces it is as comfortable as it is pleasant to 
see. 

But there are yet the outbuildings and the garden 
to tell of. The garden! ah, that is the joy over all; 
that will be the untellable thing. That May pro- 
cession of flowers ! Those wonderful June evenings 
of fire-flies ! Those July days of ckale! The oranges 
in blossom; the nespoli ready for eating; the fat figs 
ripening and swelling to bursting; the tiny olives, 
slowly, so very slowly, getting to be less tiny and 



Our Villa 



27 



then to be not tiny at all, just small and finally — but 
this is not the place! 

It is the turn of the outbuildings. These are in 
the lower garden. We get to this lower garden from 
the terrace, which is on the same level as the house, 
either by the pretty stone stair by the walnut trees 




The huge red brocca on the housetop. 



or by the gently dropping path with the tall poppies 
on one side and the dwarf red roses on the other. At 
the end of this path is the stone laundry tub under an 
arbor of Banksia roses, and next to it the vine-clad 
pony stable with three little stalls. In it is also a 
room in which Beppi sits each day for half an hour 
to turn the big wheel that someway pumps water 
from the cistern to the huge red brocca on the house- 
top. Opposite the pony stable is the gardener's 
house with two sleeping-rooms and grainroom, and 



28 Our Villa 

underneath it alcov^es for the pots and tools. There 
are cement-walled forcing frames near by, with the 
glass tops all broken by hail. 

And now, finally, after all this laborious and per- 
haps superfluous detail of description, the truly in- 
quiring mind, especially that cautious feminine one; 
the mind really interested because its possessor in- 
dulges the fancy, perhaps, of some day living for 
a short while in a modest villa in Italy; this one will 
ask: 

" Well, and after all is this pythonesque villa of 
yours, or any other one like it, really livable? Is it 
truly a house in which you can be comfortable and 
cheerful and where your dreams actually come 
true?" 

" Well, and it is," is all we have to say. 

The thick walls that keep out cold and heat; the 
water that is good, and enough of it; the fireplaces 
and stoves; the bright, sunny, south-facing, warm 
rooms of winter and the same rooms airy, darkened, 
and cool in summer; the breeze-filled balconies and 
roof-terrace; the fragrant outdoor breakfast arbor; 
the magic garden with its blossoms and green tangle: 
all of these are realities of comfort and luxury. And 
this quite apart from the joys of seeing and doing 
outside our garden wall; our leisurely enjoyment of 
Florence, our trips through the Tuscan hills or along 
Arno valley to the Tuscan towns; our hours in the 
fields and country paths, our constant pleasure in the 
wit and play of the Tuscan. 

Perhaps I should add one more matter of informa- 
tion for that cautious, truly inquiring feminine mind 



Our Villa 29 

that has visions of a future year in Italy. The rent 
of such a house is not prohibitive. It is, in fact, 
just about what the rent of a house of half as many 
rooms would be on a good street in an American 
town of twenty thousand inhabitants. 



CHAPTER III 

SERVANTS, MARKETING, AND HOUSE- 
KEEPING 

TO live in however small a villa requires servants 
and a dog. In our case the dog and one of the 
servants came with the villa. We had to have them 
whether we liked or not. But the more we have 
them the better we like them. 

Beppi is the gardener. But if you were a strong 
man — strong enough to be a hod-carrier, for that is 
what Beppi was originally — and had come by chance 
to have in charge a garden about the size of a man's 
pocket-handkerchief, would you need all your time for 
digging and watering and pruning? Well, neither 
does Beppi. He is just such a gardener as you or I 
would be. And besides he has charge also of the dog. 
That is why he gets more money than either the cook 
or the maid — forty lire a month for his varied services. 

He is fastidiously humane about this dog, whose 
name is Boy. Beppi begins bright and early in the 
morning to garden a little. He chops for some min- 
utes at the weeds in the tulip bed. But hold, a 
thought ! There should be meat got for Boy. Even 
now he howls lugubriously and the terrible Gam- 
beraia dog is nowhere near. F^or what, then, is this 
howling if not for hunger? So Beppi makes a little 

30 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 31 

passeggiata to the village for meat for Boy. And as 
custom and politeness demand, he gives a few neces- 
sary moments to passing the time of day with his 
numerous friends on the street. 

After the meat is safely in Boy's jaws, Beppi 
begins swinging his long-necked little green watering 
can or trundling again his toy wheelbarrow down 
the gravel path between the pale-blue flags and the 
deep-red roses. But again Boy howls. Beppi has 
forgotten the bread for the dog! Che peccato! To 
have to interrupt one's pressing duties of gardener 

for the sake of a brute dog! But, if it must be 

And so back to the village again to buy bread, for 
Maria, the cook, will give him none. And another 
passing of the time of day with his friends of the 
street. The time Is different, you see, by an hour 
perhaps ! 

But after his bread Boy goes to sleep. And there 
Is nothing to Interrupt Beppi In his gardening. With 
some creaking of the knees he gets down to an earnest, 
if somewhat deliberate, weeding of the gravel path. 
Handful after handful of poor little uprooted green 
things drop into the toy wheelbarrow. It is a day of 
sunshine. Beppi mops his clipped gray head. He 
lets his eye follow along the path down to the lower 
rose arbor. Not a spot of shade in It anywhere. 

" Beppi — Beppeef " 

Beppi scrambles to his feet with a surprising 
alacrity. 

" Commandi, Sign oral " 

" Ac qua fresca, Beppi I " 

" Sissignora! " 



32 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

And up out of the lower garden and on to the ter- 
race goes Beppi for the shining brass-bound copper 
pails. Down he plunges with them into the dark, cool 
cellar under the hallway and soon he comes in smiling 
and happy with the filled glasses on the tray. Ah, this 
good water so fresh and clear and cold on this day 
of terrible sunshine. And we drink to Beppi's gar- 
dening! 

Maria and Marina, approximate names but an- 
tipodal personalities, were not appurtenances of the 
villa; they had to be found. The methods of seeking 
servants In Italy are about the same as those we use 
in America. Rowena besieged agents — for there are 
good ones in Florence — besought pension mistresses, 
enlisted the Interest of friends, and even questioned 
shopkeepers with whom she came into professional 
acquaintance. It was by this last and least promis- 
ing way that she discovered Marina the maid, or 
cameriera. Out of Navonl's lace shop on the Via 
Strozzi came the clue that put beautiful Marina into 
our hands. She was the daughter of an Arezzo hair- 
dresser, and had had very little training as maid. 
But her red-brown hair, her big, soft Italian eyes and 
bright cheeks, her youth and pretty grace, and her 
swift intelligence made Rowena's brief questioning 
and examination a mere formality. As to wages, 
Marina suggested twenty or twenty-five lire a month. 
Rowena made It twenty-five : and Marina's cheeri- 
ness and neatness and prettlness have been a wonder- 
ful bargain at five dollars a month. Not to speak of 
her actual services, which include caring for the 
rooms, serving at table, and acting as lady's-maid 




Photo. Author 



Beppi and the Water Pails 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 33 

to Rowena. This last she accomplishes with particu- 
lar deftness and cleverness. Finally, she does all the 
lighter laundry work at the picturesque stone tub 
under the Banksia arbor in the garden. In this last 
item alone she has actually saved us her wages each 
month. 

The discovery of Marina was a step toward getting 
established, but the most important one of the little 
household was yet to find, — namely the cook. Row- 
ena's specifications required that this person be, first, 
a woman; second, a woman who could cook; third, 
an honest woman who could cook; and, fourth, an 
honest woman cook who could and would cater eco- 
nomically. Again she sought the agencies, the 
friends, and the friendly shopkeepers. Days passed 
of much inquiring and of occasional refusing of cooks 
who claimed to be honest and who confessed to a 
special cleverness as economical caterers, but who also 
to their and our regret were men. All of them, too, 
wanted from fifty to fifty-five lire a month as wages, 
and estimated that they could not buy for master and 
mistress and three servants for less than fifteen lire a 
day. And yet we knew that families of two in 
Florentine villini were living comfortably for much 
less. 

Finally came the day of success; it was announced 
by a summons from the agent who had let us the villa. 
Rowena listened to his news; he had discovered a 
woman cook of proved honesty and economy. She 
was " rather old " and a " bit queer " and she bore, 
for unknown reasons, the sobriquet of " The Turk." 
But she had served in a small English family near 



34 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

Fiesole for eleven years, and her recommendations 
were excellent. Would Rowena see her? 

When " The Turk " waddled in the first glance 
was not reassuring. She was short, broad, animated, 
and positive. She talked on one foot at a time, with 
one eye at a time, breaking excitedly from Italian 
into a curious German patois and back again repeat- 
edly. But with acquaintanceship grew confidence. 
Her face was better than her figure. Also she asked 
but thirty-five lire as wages, and was sure that she 
could provide decently for us for six or seven lire a 
day. Rowena engaged her, and we still make the 
monthly returning of that day a special festa. Maria 
became from the start more than satisfactory, she 
became indispensable. And she revealed herself at 
once no less a woman of heart and wit and beautiful 
devotion, than an excellent cook and a willing slave 
to our every need. 

The villa had been " put in order " for our coming. 
But when Maria arrived she gave one swift inclusive 
glance and plunged immediately into such ecstasies 
of groaning and scrubbing and calling on the saints 
and polishing, as made leisurely, thoughtful, polite 
old Beppi stare half in pain, half in admiration. The 
kitchen had not been used for nine months. Nor the 
pantry and /7;/r//o (servants' dining-room) . For days 
Maria scoured and polished until the boards shone 
white under their thin green paint, and all the kitchen 
wall gleamed with its copper pots and yellow bowls. 
Even Beppi was galvanized into an unwonted activity. 
He kept busy bringing in big pots of callas and azaleas 
and arraying them along the stairways and in the 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 35 

window-boxes of the salone, while above stairs Ma- 
rina was cleaning and sunning the wardrobes and 
dressers and pulling and pushing things according 
to Rowena's notions of convenience and taste. The 
only note of confusion arose from Maria's occa- 
sional explosive sallies into the front part of the house 
demanding permission to do a copper or brass that 
belonged in Marina's domain. Maria has an insati- 
able mania for polishing. 

All through this real putting in order, this getting 
arranged and settled for routine days, shone out the 
joy of living and joy of personal service that lie 
inborn in these Italian servants. And once settled 
Into the routine this singing, laughing, care-free tak- 
ing of life as it came became more and more con- 
spicuous. To be sure, we were a small household of 
few cares and light duties. Maria solemnly said once 
to her respectfully listening auditors at evening meal 
In the kitchen court under the stars : " This is our first 
real service, and after this there will be no other like 
It." 

Maria Is undisputed head of the little servant 
group. She buys their food and cooks and serves It 
for them. She exhorts them to Industry and serious- 
ness. For fascinating Marina has fairly bewitched 
old Beppi Into a youthful behavior that almost scan- 
dalizes black-gowned Maria. He cuts choice flowers 
for the kitchen table, hcev^en slips a few of the big, 
soft figs from the padrone's trees Into Marina's 
hands. And when Marina and Beppi give Boy a bath 
In the big green tub under the servants' arbor on the 
terrace, the joyous peals of Marina's laughter and the 



36 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

pretended scolding phrases of Beppi must carry clear 
across the olive hill-slope to the silent, shut-in, sad 
grand lady of the great castle-like villa there. 

They love the out-doors, these servants; these 
happy " little people " of the Tuscan hills and sunny 
skies. When we go to Florence for the day and 
time is theirs, and Maria seeks for coppers that may 
be repolished or finds a corner of floor that can stand 
more rubbing, Beppi and Marina drift out of the 
wistaria-bound gate and across the road and up into 
the sloping orchards and vineyards of the Gamberaia 
demesne. And they come back with arms full of 
wildflowers and tall grasses for the house. When 
the reapers came into the nearby fields Marina was 
breathless with excitement. She imitates the cicale 
and the frogs. When the frog in the lower garden 
croaks softly she says he has water enough; when he 
grunts he is demanding rain and we must beware of 
wettings. When the rainbow appears after a shower 
she prognosticates the harvest by it. If there is more 
red than yellow or green in it, it will be a good year 
for wine; if more green, a good season for oil; if 
more yellow, a rich harvest of grain. She carries her 
sewing out under the ilex arbor: she insists on the out- 
of-door meals for them all. And she dearly loves to 
spread our breakfast or tea table on the terrace under 
the rose pendants. 

Maria, who is Montenegrin and not Tuscan, and 
who has lived mostly in great cities, as Vienna and 
Budapesth, finds less joy outside her quarters. She 
keeps mostly to her shining kitchen, always so fresh 
and sweet. But she has a passion for travel. Her 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 37 

ambition is to see America. She once prepared, 
secretly, to sail for New York. She had saved the 
money and was going to slip away to the steamer and 
then send back word to her astonished friends. She 
makes great effort to carry out even her smallest plans 
with secrecy. Something slipped in the matter of the 
New York expedition and it had to be postponed. 
But she hopes to see it through some day. However, 
she holds Florence to be the loveliest city in the 
world, but the Florentines — ah, they don't deserve 
their beautiful city. She wishes to see the whole 
world, but she wants to come back to die in Florence. 
She has, poor creature, an ailing leg. And this gives 
her necessity or excuse to go once each year to the 
baths. And of all places, Montecatini. Montecatini 
is the Carlsbad of Italy. 

Maria nurses her lame leg there by the side of 
princes and millionaires. She does not stay long, but 
she stays well. How many have a servant who takes 
the waters at the swellest baths of the country? 
Maria not only cooks for us : she lends us distinction. 

The wages of the servants have been told. And 
it may be recalled that Maria undertook to buy the 
food and oil and wine for our household for " six or 
seven lire " a day. This seems a small sum, and it 
is, even for Italy, where, despite the high prices for 
meats and poultry, living is really cheap. And it 
means, of course, that the wine was vin ordinaire, 
and not overmuch of that. For the rest, though, it 
was good living for simple tastes. But perhaps it 
takes a Maria to make a dollar and a half a day go 
so far. 



38 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

Rowena gives to Maria each evening the money 
for the purchases of the morrow. For Maria is off 
to the village each morning while we are still sitting 
over our coffee on the terrace. On Saturday mornings 
she goes to Florence for more important purchases 
and special delicacies: a chicken, perhaps, or a pair of 
pigeons, fish, calves' brains, or sweetbreads, or some 
other special bit. When she gets back with her 
bundles, puffing and important, v^oluble of her experi- 
ences of the market, Rowena goes to the kitchen, 
and then begins Maria's great hour. The scales are 
got out, the provisions spread over the table, and the 
account books opened. Maria becomes philosopher, 
raconteur, actress. Is she cheery and good-humored? 
That means a successful business. She is quiet and 
downcast? She was overmatched in a delicate bit 
of trading. She produces her bills, she weighs and 
comments. 

Maria has no faith in tradesmen's honesty. " Alas, 
there is no humanity left. Each of us is but one among 
thousands nowadays." She even admonishes Rowena 
to be watchful in dealing with her. " I am honest 
to-day: but who knows what I shall be to-morrow? " 
And with a great sigh she exclaims: " I have lived 
much and seen how it goes : and many times I think 
I do not care to survive longer in the midst of such 
inhumanity." 

Her triumph over a small success in bargaining 
is as exaggerated as her despair over non-success. 
She boasted for days over getting some peaches 
softer and for one soldo less apiece than Rowena had 
paid on the same day. Another day she wept in the 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 39 

shop because eight peaches cost a lira. As she tells 
her tale of the morning's bargaining, of the rapacity 
of the tradesmen, and of her own triumphs or de- 
feats, her head and hands and body sway and leap 
like a pantomime actor's. She raises her arms to 
heaven; she bows her head in despair; with her hands 
she clutches her throat as those robbers do meta- 
phorically; she snaps her thumb-nail against her 
teeth with a sharp, hissed out '' zitta," that conveys a 
portentous injunction to secrecy. She moans and 
sobs, gloats and exults. It is all very moving: and 
it all has to do with the expenditure of a dollar and 
a half a day. 

The meats are the familiar ones of home; but more 
parts of the animal are used in Italy than with us. 
However, one does not need to follow the Italians 
too far in this. Veal is the national meat : veal cutlets, 
veal stew, and veal roasts are the staple courses of 
the Italian table. We had hard work to make Maria 
get roast beef and beefsteak, and she in her turn had 
hard work to get them. Mutton is abundant. But 
the Italian believes that civilized man should touch 
only white meat. So next to veal he uses chicken. 
The traveler in Italy must come out of it with a 
firm conviction that there are no cattle in the country : 
they must all be eaten as calves, and milk and butter 
are so rarely visible. And he must have an equally 
convinced belief in an overwhelming Italian produc- 
tion of poultry. In June Maria complains that 
chickens, and very small ones at that, are costing 
three lire. But she cheers herself with the thought 
of the coming July. " In July we are all padroni. 



40 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

There are clilckens for all of us then ! "she exclaims. 

Along with chickens are pigeons and, to Italy's 
shame, hosts of small birds of field and hedgerow. 
Italy has sacrificed all her song-birds to her table. 
I shall never forget seeing dozens, scores of the tiny 
little carcases impaled on two long slowly turning 
spits, before a great open fire in the kitchen dining- 
room of a little hotel in northern Italy. And as I 
looked over the heap of yet unplucked sacrifices on a 
nearby table, I counted easily a dozen different species 
of song-birds. There were larks, thrushes, sparrows, 
titmice, and even tiny warblers awaiting the fire. 

Of vegetables we have, varying somewhat with the 
months, cauliflower, spinach, peas, asparagus, arti- 
chokes, beets, string beans, peas, tomatoes, flat beans, 
and zucchini, this last an odd kind of little squash, 
very tender and palatable. The cauliflower and 
spinach come early and the spinach, at least, lasts all 
through the season. The tomatoes are rather late, 
as are also the flat beans. The zucchini begin in 
June and from that time on fill all gaps in the vege- 
table bill of fare. In July they seemed to reign 
supreme. 7 hey came on not only in their own undis- 
guised naked little cucumber or slender egg-shaped 
bodies and in their proper place as vegetable course, 
but they turned up in pieces in the soup, as the filling 
of omelets, or stuffed with chopped meat, or fried 
in thin slices, or mashed to puree. They managed 
to smuggle themselves in twice a day. Life became 
a zucchini-haunted nightmare. We demanded some 
other kind of vegetable, but Maria said there was 
none to be had. Marina, however, who had to see 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 41 

our daily agonies, had her heart touched and whis- 
pered one day: " Yes, there is one other kind to be 
had: beans." 

We called for Maria. " Beans, Maria : we de- 
mand beans." 

Maria looked aghast. 

" The padrone and padrona have asked for beans," 
she said slowly. " It is quite true that they wish to 
eat beans? " 

We were mystified by the serious results of our 
simple request. But we answered firmly that we did 
wish and, indeed, demanded beans. Or rather we 
did not so much demand to eat beans as not to eat 
zucchini. The situation gradually cleared; and a 
modus Vivendi was come at. Whether we ate beans 
I must not tell, for the servants agreed not to and we 
can do no less. Maria, Beppi, and Marina might eat 
beans; but the padroni never. And it was nearly as 
bad with the macaroni, although we were allowed as 
much as we liked of a certain delicate form of spa- 
ghetti. The line is very sharp between what is food 
for the servants and " little people " and what is 
food for the gentlefolk. Noblesse oblige, even to 
starvation ! 

Fortunately there are no convenances to observe 
in the matter of soups and salads; at least we have 
run afoul of none. There is a variety and excellence 
in both of these courses that well makes up for an 
occasional brief period of monotony in the vege- 
tables. And we have eggs abundant and fresh and 
manipulated by Maria with the hand of an artist. 
Omelets of a lightness and a variety as to unexpected 



42 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

interior presences to make one gasp witii admiration. 
We have fresh, crisp little radishes from our own 
garden, and occasionally thin onion stems. Maria's 
desserts are tarts, fruit puddings, a particular kind 
of fritter-like thing, Portuguese and fried cream, and 
the favorite Italian zabbaione, a sort of thick egg 
punch made with Marsala. Fig pudding and chest- 
nut pudding, too, appeared in season. Of these des- 
serts Maria seems to have trouble with her fried 
creams, although to us they seem always excellently 
prepared. " Cursed be the cook that invented fried 
cream!" she cried one day: quickly adding, "But 
I can make plum pudding like laughing! " 

The fresh fruits do not fairly begin until June. 
Up till then there are, of course, oranges and man- 
darins. In June come cherries (enormous ones), 
strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, apricots, and 
peaches. In July little pears and the first figs appear 
and there are still apricots and peaches. In August 
come plums, melons, the second figs, and the first 
grapes, while peaches and pears still last. In Sep- 
tember we have the bulk of the figs, soft, oozy purple 
or greenish-white flasks of nectar and cheap to ab- 
surdity. Sometimes the figs, although looking good, 
were bad. " Like donne del niondo," said Maria, 
" fair on the outside but false within." 

When there are not fresh fruits to come within 
our " six or seven lire a day " budget, there are 
dried fruits and raisins and nuts. From Calabria 
come wonderful little packets of small raisins soaked 
in wine and closely wrapped up in fragrant grape- 
leaves. 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 43 

The Italians make some unusual combinations with 
their fresh fruit. For example, they eat together 
pears and cheese, placing slices of pear on thin strips 
of cheese like a sandwich. They eat figs and also 
melons with ham. 

The buying is very different from that which we do 
in America. Hardly anything but oil and wine is 
kept in stock in the house. Even the flour and 
sugar are got in little paper bags of a few pounds. 
The provisioning is for the day; each day the com- 
missary is renewed. Two and three cents' worth 
of things : a single egg sometimes : enough vanilla 
for just the pudding at dinner, that is the way one 
buys not only in Italy, but all over the Continent, for 
that matter. 

The oil and wine we get from the nearby villa of 
an authoress. The wine comes in open fiaschetti and 
is kept in the cool cellar: but we actually use less of 
it than of oil. The amount of oil used in an Italian 
kitchen is appalling to anti-fry hygienists. We get 
it in great straw-covered fiaschetti and reckon pay- 
ing for it as something apart from food; something 
rather to be classed with fuel and lights. 

But these discursive notes are too evidently those 
of an untrained observer. I am no specialist In such 
matters. To pay the bills, yes; and to wonder while 
paying them how much we seem to have for how 
little we give. There are brains mixed with this 
housekeeping without doubt : Rowena's and Maria's. 
But these notes show the possibilities. Excellent 
service, and all simple people need or indeed could 
well eat, the simple commissary not only wholly 



44 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

sufficient for us, but including enough to entertain 
our friends willing to take pot-luck; the food fresh 
and clean, cooked admirably by a philosopher and 
wit, served by a graceful creature of a face and eyes 
to craze an artist; and all this for a sum within the 
resources of a very slender purse, indeed. What 
more could one ask? Perhaps just one thing more: 
the glimpse of Beppi, bareheaded, leisurely and care- 
fully carrying the big lighted lamp along the garden 
terrace from the kitchen to the salone. He brushes 
by the roses as he walks, and to us within at dinner, 
with the double doors wide open on the terrace, 
comes the fragrance from the dancing flowers. And 
we stop and hold our breath for very wonder and 
happiness. 

Indeed, all of Beppi's day is one contribution to 
the picturesque. He has more to do than merely 
garden and look after the dog. First thing in the 
morning he opens up the house. He unfastens the 
outer green shutter doors, takes down the iron bars 
he has put up the evening before across the inner 
glass doors, and swings them all wide open on to 
the garden terrace. Then he draws the long window 
curtains apart and rearranges the callas and azaleas 
and cinerarias about the doorways and in the hall and 
rooms. He cuts fresh roses and irises and heaps 
them up in the serving-room for the later arranging 
under the padrona's direction. 

If it is Tuesday or Saturday morning Beppi then 
takes out the rugs for a sweeping, and the uphol- 
stered chairs for a vigorous punching. He feeds the 
dog, and if it is the proper day, gives him a bath. 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 45 

Then he can garden a little : water some of the 
flowers perhaps, or dig up a few new potatoes or 
gather some artichokes for Maria. For our garden 
yields a little of everything, it seems; flowers, fruits, 
and vegetables. He trundles his toy wheelbarrow 
around, or clips the long new shoots and pendants 
on the rose arbors. Or sometimes he climbs up into 
the loquat tree to pick off all over-ripe fruit, so that 
the little beetles will not gather so abundantly in this 
tree that shades our breakfast table. 

But whatever Beppi is doing or wherever in house 
or garden he may be, he is ever on the alert and 
prompt with his " Sissignora, vengo subito," when 
the call comes. This call may be for fresh cold 
water, or it may be to carry a departing guest's bag 
to the tram in the village, or it may be to go to 
Florence, six miles away, on some errand. He re- 
sponds and goes always as if this opportunity to serve 
were a favor bestowed on him. He has an initiative 
of his own, too. Should we have gone to Florence 
without raincoats or umbrella, and rain comes on, how 
often has Beppi been on hand at the tram's end 
with big green umbrella to escort us home. And if 
we are late he mounts to the roof to watch for the 
first sight of us along the winding road from the 
village, so that Maria may be warned just when to 
stir the fire under the waiting soup. Sometimes 
Marina replaces Beppi on the housetop. And then 
what a sight to welcome one home; this graceful 
weather-vane, with blowing hair and laughing face, 
that waves a greeting from the red tiles. 

Beppi feels a fine personal responsibility, too, for 



46 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

his people and his premises. He it is that meets the 
beggars and the would-be intruders at the gate with 
Boy growling fiercely at his heels. And his fatherly, 
protecting attitude toward the two women servants 
is a delight to see. At their long, merry dinner to- 
gether Beppi sits at the head of the table and leads 
the conversation like the true gentleman host he is. 
And even in his insatiable curiosity to know all that 
concerns us his politeness makes his questions seem 
but a kindly interest. One day a traveling friend, a 
writer of verses, had tea with us. After he left, 
Beppi and his long-necked watering pot busied them- 
selves quietly about the flowers near the tea-table 
where we still sat, until he asked casually, " Is the 
gentleman from your home, perhaps, Signora? Is he 
long away? What does he do?" And when he 
was answered that the gentleman was a poet, he re- 
sponded politely, " Ah, and is he perhaps greater 
than d'Annunzio? " 

In the service of Beppi and Marina and Maria 
there is a quality of personal relationship and per- 
sonal devotion that are its finest and most beautiful 
characteristics. And their manifestations take very 
delightful forms! We wandered out one Sunday 
morning into the Gamberaia fields and found the day 
and the flowers and the cicale and all so enchanting 
that luncheon time came and we were not aware of 
it. And after a while, as we lay outstretched on a 
flower-bank by a path in the olive orchard, we heard 
a step and there was smiling Beppi, hat in hand, and 
softly saying the hour. He had sought us through 
the fields and orchards while Marina had gone by 



Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 47 

the roadway, and as we all came home together, 
Maria stood welcoming us at the gate. 

They never forget our special festa days even if 
we sometimes forget them, and we never go away 
for a little two or three days' trip to some Tuscan 
town but they put candles in the shrine to burn for 
our safe return. One day when we came back from 
Prato we were so late that we dined in Florence 
before coming out to the villa. When we finally 
reached home, Marina and Beppi met us on the road 
from the village, where they had been waiting a 
full hour, while at home Maria had heard a civetta 
(little owl) cry In the garden, and was crossing her- 
self and praying for our safe return. We never go 
to bed at night without their " Felice notte, hiion 
riposo," and Beppi's last call for " commandi." 

Ah ! such servants, such comrades in pleasure : such 
nature-lovers, such poets, such children ! Servants 
who are neither servile inferiors nor superior in- 
solents: servants who serve as friends serve, happy 
In their work and making us happy, making the 
days full of song and good cheer, full of the joy of 
being alive in a land of sunshine and flowers and 
beauty. We can begin to understand that extraor- 
dinary clinging to the very last of Michelangelo to 
his old servant Urblno. 

" For the older he grew," says Grimm of the great 
artist, " the more the number dwindled of those whom 
he had gathered round him In middle age. He had 
sat day and night by the sick couch of his old servant 
to whose widow ... he turned with the most 
anxious sympathy. The letter which he wrote to 



48 Servants, Marketing, and Housekeeping 

Vasari on Urbino's death is truly desponding. The 
one hope alone remained to him of soon meeting his 
lost friend in another life. He had indeed felt, he 
says, how Urbino, as he lay dying, had suffered less 
from the fear of his own death than from the thought 
of being obliged to leave him behind him thus old 
and solitary in this false and miserable world, in 
which nothing now remained for him but ceaseless 
calamity." 



CHAPTER IV 
OUR GARDEN 

I SAY our garden; but I mean any garden near 
Florence. The procession of flowers must pass 
through all In about the same order. Ours is small, 
and not an " Italian garden," if by that is meant one 
with straight, broad paths and long vistas closed by 
sculptures or fountains; one with cypresses, plaster 
grottoes, and carved stone benches. But everywhere 
in Italy there are the typical flowers and vines, the 
harmonies of odor and color, the swift succession of 
bursting bLssoms, the day-long song of insects, the 
going and coming of soft breezes that set all the 
myriad leaves to dancing, and the true Italian languor 
and loveliness over all. We have seen other Floren- 
tine and hill-side gardens, and we like ours better the 
more we see these others. We are prejudiced? Per- 
haps. But the garden is not ours for ever, we have 
no proprietary interest in it, simply a lease on its 
beauties and joys for a little time, hardly more endur- 
ing or personal than the rambler's lease we have on 
any other garden we can get into. Still, it is, perhaps, 
true that we are prejudiced. I hope so, indeed. It 
is good to like the things you have; it is one of the 
first secrets of happiness. 

The great villa near by has a real " Italian gar- 

49 



50 Our Garden 

den," a representative of the type made famous by 
the gardens of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli and the Villa 
Medici on the Pincian Hill. The box-hedges along 
the long, broad paths, the statues in the vistas, the 
water playing down the stucco cascade steps or spout- 
ing from the dolphins' mouths; the cypresses spiring 
high; the dense-headed ilexes, the Japanese grotesque- 
ness and beauty of the stone pines, and the clinging 
vines up the broken pillars and old tree trunks; all 
that belongs to the type is there. 

Ours is a homely little garden for homely people. 
It does not call for a staff of gardeners, but for a 
single Beppi and a singing woman in wide straw hat, 
trowel in hand. It is a garden of an acre, perhaps, 
dropping rather quickly down the hill-slope, bounded 
by high stone retaining walls on the sides and lower 
end and by the smiling face of the long, low house on 
the up-slope end. At this end there is a built-up, 
level terrace varyingly twenty to forty feet wide and 
extending all along the house front; and on it a pa- 
vilion arbor of Banksia rose for coffee in the morning, 
tea in the afternoon, and hammock, steamer chairs, 
and reading-table for all between times. 

There are a few trees on the terrace; a loquat 
standing so close to the arbor that the yellow fruits 
fall as they ripen on to the very breakfast table; a 
dense arbor vitae, shaped like a top upside down, with 
the little blue-gray cones studding its bright-green 
surface; an olive, a pear or two, a big fan-palm, and 
a plum tree with a thriving family of large black 
carpenter ants in its ragged trunk. Then there are 
tvvo lemon trees in great red-brown pots nearly a 



Our Garden 51 

yard high and as broad across the top, and a rhyn- 
chospermum as fragrant as a ja-smine in another big 
pot. The June evenings were heavy with the odor 
of myriad white blossoms. 

But mostly the terrace is given to vines, shrubs, 
and bedded plants. Against the west wall is a row 
of high pink oleanders that blossom all through 
the summer, while at their feet cluster bridal wreath, 
mignonette, and old-fashioned white pinks. In the 
angle of wall and house run up two roses, a yellow 
and a red, clasping and twining about each other in 
inextricable confusion. They go up by the salone 
door and over it to the balcony, which they drape as 
with heavy green cloths all figured with red and yel- 
low. Then they climb on up to the tiled roof of the 
house. In fact, all along this south or garden face 
of the long house the plant draperies of roses, jas- 
mine, brilliant trumpet-flowers, and orange, hang in 
wonderful beauty and richness. This orange drapery 
was new to us who only knew the ordered rows of 
the California orchards. By the salottino door and 
by that of the entrance hall are two thick, flat, 
fragrant climbing masses of it. 

The Banksia rose arbor, a snowy mass in May, is 
backed by lilacs that blossom in April and May, and 
yuccas that send up their tall spikes of creamy white 
blossoms in June. This bed is bounded on one side by 
clematis supported on wires between low, green stakes, 
and is filled with pansies, anemones, stock, geraniums, 
and foliage plants. Across a path to the east is a 
palm bed, in which are also myrtle, snapdragons, 
and more clematis, stock, and yuccas. All along the 



52 Our Garden 

house wall and clustering around the feet of the lift- 
ing vines are geraniums, heliotrope, snapdragons, 
myrtle, laurestinus, and foliage plants, giving a con- 
stant succession of new blossoms and changing color. 

In front of the dining-room terrace doors are two 
rose plots in which the flowers kept appearing steadily 
from May to August. At the height of rose time the 
display all over the little garden is nothing short 
of breath-taking; there is a perfect riot and clamor 
of roses on the walls, along the balconies, hanging 
from the roofs, massed on arbors, lined alongside 
the paths, and scattered in groups in beds and about 
the bases of trees. White, yellow — a magnificent 
Marechal Niel is spread all over one end of the 
gardener's house — pink, red, saffron, copper; all the 
possible colors of roses in " massy harmonies " of 
unplanned grouping and design. 

In front of the kitchen doors there is a dense ilex 
arbor with stone table and stone benches, where the 
servants are supposed to have their meals. They do 
sometimes, but mostly they prefer their dinners under 
the stars, setting the table on the open little brick- 
floored court next the kitchen and storerooms. Their 
part of the house and terrace is no less rich in blos- 
som and vine than ours. Indeed, the most striking 
picture on the terrace is the curving line of azaleas, 
white, pink, and red, that follows the looping wall 
which runs from near the kitchen door to the outer 
gate. This wall I call looping because its crest is a 
series of shallow arcs of circles with intervening flat- 
topped spaces on which stand pots of agaves. As the 
ground rises to the gate these loops of wall, hung with 



Our Garden 



53 



jasmine and rhynchospermum are succeedingly higher. 
The effect of wall-draping vines and cresting agaves 
is one of grace and unusual decoration. 

The gate itself has its characteristic Tuscan over- 
hanging tiled roof covered with a lush growth of 
wistaria, which comes into full blossom at the begin- 
ning of May but continues to send out sporadic 
masses of bloom all through the summer. From the 
gate roof the graceful vine runs on up the balcony 
over the children's play place and from there on up 
to the roof of the house. By each stone gate-post 
rises a thin young cypress. 

The open spaces on the terrace covered with finely- 
broken red stone and soil are kept clean of fallen 
leaves and fruit by 
Beppi with fagot 
broom and basket. In 
these clear spaces, in 
little intimate groups 
or ringed round the 
circular beds and 
ranged on the stone 
steps of the house 
doors, are changing 
companies of potted 
plants; blossoming cal- 
las in April, cinerarias 
in May, carnations in 
June, geraniums in 
July, and chrysanthe- 
mums in the autumn; while along the coping of the 
retaining wall that holds the terrace above the lower 




' In little intimate groups 
are changing companies of 
potted plants." 



54 Our Garden 

garden are more of these pots, some of them of 
unusual shape, tall and vase-like. This coping and 
these pots are very convenient for decoration. One 
festa day we draped all the walls with heavy red 
hangings and covered the stone steps of the house 
doors giving on the terrace also with red, and 
dropped other hangings from the balconies. Then 
we arranged the many and various pots on and by 
side of and under all these draperies. It was like 
a Carpaccio picture. 

It is on the wall coping and in the dry open places 
of the terraces that the spotted green, beady- 
eyed, long-tailed little wall-lizards play. They play 
with each other in jest or love or anger; but they 
play in another way with the little ncspoli beetles, 
and the flies that alight on the fallen fruit. This 
play is little fun for the beetles and flies. I have 
made our garden, so far in my account of it, exclu- 
sively a botanical one, which makes a curiously one- 
sided account, for it is a zoological one as well. But 
there are too many snails, too many great yellow 
wasps, too many black carpenter and blue leaf-cutter 
bees, too many green and silver leaf-chafers, too many 
very large black and very small red ants, and far, 
far too many rose beetles to be crowded into this 
chapter, already a bit over-full of blossoms and vinery. 
There are little owls and swift bats and a kind of 
great rat that affects stone walls and tiled roofs, and 
is, according to Beppi, really a very fearful creature. 
But all these must be passed with their names, and 
some others ignored altogether. 

At one place just south of the big palm which is 



Our Garden 55 

outside the dining-room doors, the terrace is built 
farther out over the lower garden as a tile-floored, 
open court bounded by a wall three feet high and 
shaded by a large walnut tree that comes up from 
below. This is our outside dining-room when we 
prefer our dinner al fresco. As we sit here our eyes 
feast as well as our mouths. To the east are the 
olive plantations, the tall cypresses, and the beautiful 
face of Gamberaia; to the south the long, dropping 
hill-slope and Arno valley; to the southwest Florence 
and her roofs and domes. The north view is filled 
by the long, irregular vine-draped stretch of the 
house, with its many red-casemented, green-persianed 
doors and windows fronted by the blossoming masses 
of shrubbery and bedded plants. From this terrace 
court an angled little stone stair leads down to the 
lower garden. Or one may come to It from the 
terrace by a gently-dropping path from the west 
wall. 

Down here is the real garden; here is where things 
grow in masses; where the roses are in low hedges 
along the paths; that is, if these hedges are not tall 
irises or climbing sweet peas. It Is an olive planta- 
tion, a pear and fig and peach and apple orchard, a 
grass plot spotted with red poppies, a group of 
rose and passion flower and locust bowers, and a 
kitchen-garden of potatoes, asparagus, artichokes, 
tomatoes, and beans. It is a tangle of shrubbery, and 
an officinal garden of rosemary, lavender, and thyme. 
And with all this it seems to be, in May, wholly a 
garden of irises; of pale-blue ones mostly, but also 
of white ones and indigo ones and black-spotted 



56 



Our Garden 



bronzy ones; everywhere just Irises by untold hun- 
dreds. It is, in fact, a revelation of how much and 
various a garden of one acre can be; a tiny lot of 




" An angled stone stair leads down to the lower garden." 

ground made wonderful by the co-partnership of the 
wit and industry of man with the generosity of 
Nature. 

There is a special pleasure in the unpremeditation 



Our Garden 



57 



of paths, and in the astonishing juxtaposition of pota- 
toes and irises or artichokes and lilacs. These happy 
victories of chance appeal to one's instinct of vaga- 
bondia and one's spirit of democracy. Why should 
not the lily and the onion be friends at elbows? They 
are of the same family ! 

Far away at the very lower end of the garden, 
which isn't really far at all, there is the other bound- 
ing, retaining wall rising high out of the olive grove 
below. In the ar- 
bor along this wall 
that is covered with 
rose, passion vine, 
and acacia and bor- 
dered by larches and 
arbor vitas, we some- 
times have tea, or 
lie on spread mat- 
tings to read and 
doze. From here 
we can look out in- 
timately into the po- 
dere that stretches 
across and down the 
hill-slope below us. 
The podere is pri- 
marily an olive or- 
chard; as, indeed, 
are all the hill-sides 
about Florence. But in it grapevines loop from 
tree to tree, and grain is underneath all. Three 
different crops, not to speak of scattering figs, mul- 




" It seems to be, in May, wholly a 
garden of irises." 



58 Our Garden 

berries, and other fruits, are taken from it by its 
owner each year, and to us it yields still another 
harvest: a harvest of continuous beauty of scene and 
interest of performance. 

White oxen come here with red tassels on their 
faces, and laborers with grimy sashes girt about 
them. There are birds which chatter and call, and 
crickets, green grasshoppers, and cicale that sing and 
throb all through the long, warm, growing days. 
There is one nightingale; it stays high up in the 
podere, just below the cypresses and ilexes of Gam- 
beraia and begins its singing usually about midnight, 
sometimes, though, not till just gray dawn. We 
have never heard it sing at midday, as nightingales 
are said sometimes to do. 

If the podere adjoining us with its olive and vines 
and shivering grain belongs to us, what is to prevent 
our seeking a higher vantage point and making a 
wider inclusion in our proprietary dominance? The 
house-roof will be just the place. And it has besides 
a peculiar flora of its own, a roof-garden of an un- 
usual kind. It is not the roof-terrace that is the roof- 
garden, there is not a single pot or flower-box there; 
it is the tiled roof itself that is the garden. For it is a 
veritable bed of lichen: green, sulphur-yellow, orange, 
rose-red, ashy, black, white lichens in bizarre spots 
and splashes everywhere, a beautiful place that grows 
lovelier and more interesting the more and the closer 
one looks at it. It reminds me always of another 
sort of garden quite different and far from it; a sea- 
garden; the bed of colored stones, splotched with 
flat sponges, boring molluscs, and shelled worms that 



Our Garden 59 

one sees at the bottom of clear tide-pools. We some- 
times have our tea here, and then we take our wider 
possession of the hlll-sldes and valleys around us with 
their fields and orchards and forest patches. There 
are whole villages In the view; also a great monastery 
on the high hilltop to the east, where St. Francis 
and St. Dominic met; and there are two mediaeval 
castles and an Etruscan city with its modern villas 
built on crumbling relics. And best of all there are 
the winding river and the haze-blue mountains. The 
hill-slopes just above and behind us, " the hills over- 
smoked behind by the pale-gray olive trees," are so 
close and so steeply rising that It seems as If we could 
step from our roof right into the olive orchard. But 
for the tunnel-like road below us between the house 
and the opposite high stone wall, we really could. To 
the west the village church steeple shoots squarely 
up across the setting sun, and its bells have a ludi- 
crous way of kicking out from the belfry windows 
when they ring. The sun goes down behind the 
jagged peaks of the Apuan Alps, and the colors that 
slowly kindle and fade on the mountains and sky are 
a veritable conflagration. 

One evening we came up here to see a great storm 
that raged over the distant hills and mountains south 
and west. Such boldness and swift succession of fork- 
ing lightning flashes, such prolonged rolling and echo- 
ing and swelling and dying of thunder were new and 
wonderful to us. And then with the falling of the 
storm came on, for contrast, all the stillness of the 
Italian night In the country. The city sounds did 
not reach us and the garden Insects mostly hush 



6o Our Garden 

with the onset of darkness. Below us the fire-flies 
twinkled in the garden: beyond them in the distance 
the lights of Florence twinkled in the streets and 
piazzas; and overhead the stars twinkled in the 
swiftly clearing sky. 



CHAPTER V 
OUR VILLAGE 

FROM the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, the 
trysting-place of so many commuting villagers, 
the focus of so many street-cars and omnibuses, the 
tram leaves for Settignano every twenty minutes dur- 
ing early forenoon and late afternoon, and every 
hour during midday. The ride costs thirty centesimi 
and takes thirty-five minutes. It is a pleasant jour- 
ney, and an interesting one for its glimpses of beau- 
tiful fields and hills. Fiesole perches in its narrow 
saddle over the Mugnone; and Florence grows 
grayer and more compact about its dome and towers, 
the higher we climb those " harmonious hills " 
where stands our village. 

It is an Interesting ride also, for the glimpses it 
gives, swift but vivid, of the people with whom we 
are for the moment living: villeggiante, operaii, and 
contadini, Florentines and Settignanese, but Tuscans 
all, with Tuscan wit and good humor, Tuscan ways 
and point of view. De Amicis has written a delight- 
ful little book of thumb-nail sketches of his traveling 
companions in these carozze di tiitti, as he calls the 
tram cars of Turin. " Non parlate al manovratore " 
is placarded over the motor-man's head. But fortu- 
nately this interdiction of speech, while it may keep 

6i 



62 Our Village 

others silent, does not seem to apply to the manovra- 
tore in the least. So he talks to you, to himself, to 
the donkey-carts and oxen-drivers of the country 
road; to the bicyclers and busmen of the city streets 
and the dust-covered pedestrians of the side paths. 
And rarely does his talk miss point; there is always 
in it a touch of humor or wit, of impudence or mor- 
dant advice. It is a whole philosophy in interjection 
and passing comment: an exercise of the Tuscan 
heritage come down from the master wits of the 
Renaissance. It is the transmuted poetry and epi- 
gram of the days of Lorenzo. 

As we are ready to start, a bus blocks our way. 
Imprecations hurl up and down between the perched 
bus-driver and the tram platform. The busman re- 
viles the lowly position of the motor-man. " But 
you must be a much worse sort than I," replies our 
man of the electric current, " for they put you up 
there alone, away from your passengers. We tram 
men associate with people, we." 

A man struggles on with his arms full of bundles, 
which take time and cause confusion on the rear 
platform. The motor-man peers back over his 
shoulder, and asks: " Are you quite alone, then? " 

While the car is at rest at Mensola, where old 
women are sitting in the shade by the bridge, weaving 
cloths on small hand looms, a peasant woman clam- 
bers in for a last moment's conversation with her 
padrona going to Settignano on an errand. It is 
time for the car to start, but the conversation ripples 
on. Finally, the motor-man, who has already waited 
two or three minutes beyond his schedule, interrupts : 



Our Village 63 

*' Pardon, but if perhaps the massaia [polite des- 
ignation of the peasant wife] would deign to accom- 
pany us, we should have much pleasure. Have we 
permission to start?" 

We come often too soon to the end of the thirty- 
five minutes of the tram line, and have to bid a 
regretful a rivederci to the motor-man. 

Settignano Is not another Flesole, and few tourists 
come to know it. But it has good things to know; 
chief among these Its beauties of setting and scene, 
its association with names conspicuous In sculpture 
and architecture, and among its villas one of the most 
noble and Impressive and truly beautiful of any near 
Florence. 

Settignano is still an unspoiled suburb of Florence. 
It has few forestieri to buy up and renovate Its villas, 
to sophisticate its villagers, to teach Its children beg- 
gary. It has just one real permanent beggar and he 
gives half his time to a neighboring hamlet. It is 
still peopled with primitive Tuscans, living the simple 
free life of contadlnl and little shopkeepers, enjoying 
their daily gossiping In street and piazza, their festa 
Sunday afternoons and evenings In ca^e con giardino, 
and around the local band or choral club in the open 
place by the church. They have their oxen fair In 
June, and their harvest and vintage festivals in July 
and September as ever since the Virgilian days. 

To us Settignano has its added Interest of market- 
place and post-office; we have our clothes cleaned 
and boots patched there; we share, through our 
servants, its gossip and excitements; we contribute 
our share of centeslml to help bring back and bury 



64 



Our Village 



a soldier son of the village " dead in far Palermo." 
We take language lessons from its school-teacher, 
and greet daily the polite hostler of the man with the 
cart and shining little black pony which we should 
like dearly to own. We are padrone and padrona of 




" They have their oxen fair in June." 

a villa in Settignano, and as such are for the moment 
Settignanese and very glad of it. 

But unless you come to live In Settignano you will 
not experience these delights, and as an earnest and 
persevering tourist hot on the trail of pictures and 
frescoes, of birthplaces and literary landmarks, you 
may even not want them. The streets and shops and 
people of Settignano will then be of only passing in- 
terest. Sights and names will be wanted. Well, our 
village has even something of these. 

First, Desiderio the sculptor. He is Settignano's 
most famous son. The village cinematograph hall is 



Our Village 65 

named for him ! And so is the new piazza on the 
verge of the hill at the left of the end of the tram line. 
The pleasing statue of Desiderio here is by Vittorio 
Caradossi, and the inscription : " A Desiderio nato sul 
colle harmonioso," etc., by d'Annunzio. The 
view of Florence from this piazza is one of 
the best to be had from any equal distance from 
the city. 

Desiderio di Bartolommeo, or Desiderio da Setti- 
gnano, as he is better known, is generally esteemed 
the best of that little group of famous Tuscan sculp- 
tors who had their first training in the stone-carving 
sheds of Settignano, Fiesole, Maiano, and Rovez- 
zano, hill-side villages on the Eastern outskirts of 
Florence. (See the chapter " The Sculptors from the 
Hill-side Quarries.") Of this group besides De- 
siderio, Settignano claims also the brothers Bernardo 
and Antonio Rossellino. And still other Settignanese 
stone-carvers have come to distinction, if not to the 
wide fame of Desiderio and the Rossellini. Indeed, 
the village has always been the home of stone-cutters 
and carvers. " Modest quarriers and stone-cutters 
at first," says Carocci in his exhaustive account of the 
environs of Florence, " the Settignanese felt quickly 
the influence of the arts that in Florence were passing 
from triumph to triumph. They dedicated themselves 
to this art, and soon built up here a true and dis- 
tinctive school of stone-carving from which issued in 
great numbers the most exquisite works of ornamenta- 
tion and composition. The art of the Settignanese 
masters had a character peculiarly its own and local, 
above all in connection with its decorative character, 



66 



Our Village 



in which it preserved constantly a type of spontaneous 
ingenuity associated with the high skill and good 
taste of the workers." 

Notable examples of the work of these Settigna- 
nese sculptors are the Marzuppini tomb in Santa 



1 




" A most useful village fountain, where all day long women and 
children fill their straw-covered fiaschi and exchange the 
gossip of the day." 

Croce, by Desiderio, the Bruini tomb in the same 
church by Bernardo Rossellino, and the Portogallo 
tomb in San MIniato by Antonio Rossellino. 

Immediately on descending In Settignano from the 
Florence tram one finds oneself on the edge of the 
Piazza Niccolo Tommaseo and nearly in face of 
the church of Santa Maria a Settignano. In the mid- 
dle of the piazza is a most useful old village foun- 
tain, where all day long women and children fill their 
straw-covered fiaschi and exchange the gossip of the 



Our Village 67 

day. This Niccolo Tommaseo, whose statue by Leo- 
pold Costali adorns the piazza, was a patriot and 
scholar who spent the last years of his life in the vil- 
lage. Within the church are several interesting 
works of art: a tavola representing the Resurrection 
by Manzuoli da S. Friano; a tela figuring the Last 
Supper by Andrea Commodi ; several frescoes in the 
manner of Cigoli (near a statue of S. Lucia) ; other 
frescoes by Piero Dandini in the choir; a group in 
glazed terra-cotta representing the Madonna and 
Child between two angels, a work in the last manner 
of Andrea della Robbia and his son Giovanni; and 
finally a marble ciborium, a delicate piece of orna- 
mental sculpture of the thirteenth century. The pul- 
pit was designed by Bernardo Buonalenti. In the 
oratorio of Santa Trinita adjoining the church is a 
marble bas-relief of Madonna and Child, a work 
either of Desiderio's own or of some gifted Setti- 
gnanese imitator of the master. 

In a corner of the piazza near the street is a much- 
mutilated rough statue of the Roman emperor Sep- 
timius Severus, put up in 1559. It was erected, 
according to Carocci, to consecrate the tradition of 
the founding of the village by Severus. But the 
traces of antiquity visible in certain fragments bearing 
inscriptions point to a much earlier settlement of the 
place. It is probable that the name Settignano is 
derived from a family Settimia that had here, in the 
flowery days of the Roman colony at Fiesole, their 
major possessions. 

By a dropping road or pathway leading north 
from the iron gates just at the end of the tram line. 



68 Our Village 

one comes in a few rods to the Villa Verse, one of 
the largest and most beautifully situated of the Setti- 
gnano villas. Its special interest lies, however, in its 
association with the name of Meo del Francesco del 
Caprina, who was born here in 1430 and whose 
numerous works of sculpture are to be found in Rome 
and other Italian cities. The villa and its extensive 
poderi later belonged to the Marchese Buondel- 
monte. 

Among all the villas in or near our village, how- 
ever, that called " La Gamberaia " is easily first. 
To see it and its marvelous avenue of towering 
cypresses, and its box-hedge so broad across its clipped 
top that a carriage might drive on it, is fully worth 
a visit to Settignano. As its present owner, the 
Principessa Gyka, lives in great seclusion and seldom 
leaves the villa, opportunity is rare to enter the 
elaborate formal garden or to see the interior of the 
great house, with its wealth of decoration and its 
majesty of great halls and high ceilings. The en- 
trance hall is eighty by thirty feet, and salone and 
dining-room are in similar proportions of grandeur. 
The garden is four hundred yards long along its 
eastern face and contains an unusual number of foun- 
tains and pools, for Gamberaia has a famous water 
supply. 

But even if one does not enter, he may see very 
well from the roadway the villa and garden, the 
massive building weathered and stained to beautiful 
soft shades of yellowish, almost orange when the 
afternoon sun is fully on its face. Gigantic but 
slender cypresses tower darkly out of the grounds 




Photo, Polheiuus 



The Cypresses of Villa Gamberaia 



Our Village 69 

and march in double column high above the tunnel- 
ing roadway and on up the gentle hill-slope to a 
curious grotto pool. Bocklin's wonderful " Island 
of Death " cypresses might have had this Gamberaia 
group for inspiration. It is indeed quite possible 
that they did, for the artist lived for some time in 
a villa not far away. 

Gamberaia has in its history, too, a certain amount 
of interesting association. The brothers Rossellino, 
already mentioned as, next to Desiderio, Settignano's 
most famous sculptor sons, were two of the five chil- 
dren of Matteo di Domenico, called the Borra stone- 
cutter, who lived here in the first part of the fifteenth 
century. The place was then known as Gamberelli. 
All these five children were boys and all followed 
the profession of the father. Two, Domenico and 
Tommaso, did not rise above the rank and file of 
Settignanese stone-workers; a third, Giovanni, be- 
came known as an unusually capable sculptor and 
architect; but the remaining two, Bernardo, born in 
1409, and Antonio, born in 1427, came to take their 
place among the best of the Florentine names of the 
golden century. For what reason they were known 
under the name of Rossellino rather than under their 
father's seems untold, but this is an incident com- 
mon to the history of many of the famous Italian 
artists. 

Later Bernardo sold Gamberaia to one Dome- 
nico di Jacopo Riccialbarri, who must have enlarged 
and beautified the modest house of the artists; for 
from this time on the place is known in local history 
as the " Palace of Gamberaia." The subsequent 



70 



Our Village 



changes of ownership are of no particular interest, 
except perhaps the falling of the property into the 
hands of the two famous Florentine families of the 
Cerretani and the Capponi in the eighteenth century. 
The Capponi soon had entire ownership and in their 
hands the garden was greatly enriched with statues, 
grottoes, fountains, and other embellishments. In the 
nineteenth century Prince Louis Napoleon, after- 
ward Napoleon III, lived in the villa for several 
months. 

In the chapter " Our Villa " mention has been 

made of a group of four other Settignano villas lying 

^ closely together on 

the south hill-slope 

that drops swiftly 

down to the Arno, 

'it 'i^-W ^fc^^ the four villas of 

Lhiesa, rorzum- 
cola, Capponcino, 
and Viviani, associ- 
ated with the names 
of Michelangelo, 
Eleonora Duse, Ga- 
briele d'Annunzio, 
and Mark Twain, 
respectively. And 
still other Setti- 
gnano houses asso- 

The church of the frati Olivetani at ciated with names 
Settignano. ^^^^^^ -^ ^^^ ^^ jj^. 

erature might be mentioned. However, the special 
charm of Settignano is its out-of-doors. Farms 









1 £ 



Photo. Author 

Cypresses on Settignano Hill Above Val d'Arno 



Our Village 71 

and orchards and vineyards are all about it, and 
from its hill-paths are glorious views of Arno valley 
and its inclosing mountains. 

Take the road past Gambcraia that dips in a short, 
cavern-like tunnel under the cypress avenue and winds 
up and along the hill-side beyond. It is lined by 
the ever-present stone walls of the Italian highways, 
but they are low and you can look over them into the 
fields and orchards on either hand, and see scarred 
olive trees, the looping vines, and the grain with 
its scattered red poppies and corn-flowers. In a little 
way you come out upon a shoulder of the hill, and 
there you can sit on the wall in front of the curious 
old roadway shrine and look out between two lifting 
cypresses standing like mute guardians on either side 
of a gate. It is a wonderful view of the Arno from 
here. It can be traced all the way to and through 
Florence and beyond, lying in its broad valley on its 
way to the sea. On its right rise the Pistojese moun- 
tains where so many Florentines make their summer 
villeggiatiire. On the left, that is on the south, lift 
the rugged Carrara; those marble mountains where 
Michelangelo dug out his blocks. Directly across the 
river and narrow valley in front of you are the round- 
ing hills dotted with innumerable white villas, scat- 
tered churches with their square bell-towers, and 
every here and there a village nestling in a hollow 
or clinging to the slopes. The horizon is an uneven 
line of hilltops with passes or hollows between, and 
this sinuous crest-line is cut by towers or tall trees 
that etch themselves against the blue or white or 
gray of the sky. And everywhere close about you 



72 Our Village 

it is all fresh and verdurous this spring day, and full 
of delicate color and soft calls of distant bells. 

If you are more ambitious and would see a larger 
world you can turn your back on the two cypresses 
that frame the Arno and climb up the stony path 
through the podere to the very summit of the hill. 
Resting there under the young cypresses and great 
umbrella pines, one can look east across the Arno to 
Vallombrosa and its forests, or north to the distant 
snow-topped Apennines, and west to the bold peaks 
of the Apuan Alps. New valleys and new villages 
are in the view and you can people them all with 
marching armies and strew them with ancient ad- 
venture. For in truth armies marched and adventure 
came on all these Tuscan hills and valleys. 



CHAPTER VI 
BEGINNING TO SEE FLORENCE 
PIAZZA DEL DUOMO 

THE Piazza del Duomo is to us the beginning 
and the ending of Florence; for it is there we 
disembark when we come in by tram from Settignano, 
and it is there we take passage again for home after 
a half-day's sightseeing or shopping or just strolling 
the streets. Our rule is to do but one thing on one 
trip, that is, go to one church or one gallery, or 
hunt out one stray fresco. We get more impression 
from the things seen in this way than if we attempted 
the Herculean tasks assigned to the " morning of the 
fourth day " or " sights of the western quarters." 
But we do not stick to our rule with entire fidelity. 
Tradition and the inertia which require initiative 
and decision to overcome still hold us in a measure to 
the approved manner of sightseeing work. The tasks 
of the morning of the fourth day are too well estab- 
lished to be discarded or avoided on mere recognition 
of their foolishness. 

The truth is, Baedeker and Baedekerism are too 
much with almost all of us who are traveling the well- 
worn trails of culture by sightseeing. It is a serious 
mistake to make a complete surrender to Baedeker. 

73 



74 Beginning to See Florence 

He is the most useful but the most abused, the most 
helpful but most harmful, the most instructive but 
most subversive of friends. 

So many days, so many churches. My tired-eyed, 
limp-shouldered friend. Smith, whom I met in the 
Settignano tram as he was returning after a rebellious 
day's escape from Florence and frantic joy in the 
country hill-paths, said: " They say there's four hun- 
dred churches in Rome. Well, I guess we done 'em 
all. But Ma's not been very well here and we're 
goin' to miss some of the Florence ones. Anyway, I 
kind o' like to see the country occasionally. Don't 
you?" 

It is well to see the country occasionally. Or even 
to see nothing. And those are the times when one 
is likely to see things that will stick in the memory 
when the Uffizi has become a hazy blend of color 
and a composite photograph, badly printed, of saints, 
sinners, Christ children, and Madonnas. 

Nine out of ten of us have no real interest in 
ninety out of one hundred of the Baedeker appre- 
ciations. We haven't the technical knowledge or the 
experience to understand and enjoy the points in the 
artistry that determine the stars. Galleries and 
cathedrals can be and are enjoyed by uneducated 
people, but this enjoyment comes from the impres- 
sions, the personal discoveries, the slowly awakening 
and growing art sense; the appreciation of the whole 
thing rather than the perception or understanding of 
the points of masterly technic or the traces of this 
or that school or manner. 

Another point about good seeing is that connected 



Piazza del Duomo 75 

with the mental mood and physical condition of the 
see-er. An astronomer, clothed In two sweaters and 
an overcoat, and lying in a great, dark, bare bell of a 
room on a wooden rack under the eye-piece of his 
thirty-Inch refractor, murmurs a prayer for " good 
seeing." He means by this a dark night, and clear, 
with no wind, and in himself the patience, the en- 
thusiasm, the eager eye and brain that will not only 
hold him to his lonely vigil through half a long night, 
but will make this vigil a joy and a revelation; he 
prays for a good opportunity and a good use of it. 

Just so the achiever of culture along the lines sug- 
gested by Cook and approved by Baedeker must pray 
for " good seeing." The opportunity is most cer- 
tain to be good; his use of the opportunity depends 
upon many things. Two of these are certainly mental 
mood and physical condition. And who Is he that 
can rely on the steadfastness of his mood and stomach 
for the perfect succession of days assumed by the 
guide-book? On the "morning of the fourth day," 
lying In bed is perhaps the very best thing one can 
do toward acquiring culture. If so, much better do It 
than groan through the tasks appointed for that 
precious period. 

On a Sunday morning In the densely-packed rooms 
of the PItti as one of a vast concourse of people all 
mumbling, mumbling rapidly the lesson of the morn- 
ing of the fourth day from the red-backed book of 
commonplaceness, we may excuse ourselves; for our 
souls haven't much chance anyway and we are at least 
backed up In our mistaken religion by the other be- 
lievers. But for the other times, alone In a great 



76 Beginning to See Florence 

still church, before a carven tomb, or in an old mon- 
astery room of frescoed walls, or a half-empty gal- 
lery some fortunate morning hour, why not put aside 
the faithful book companion and try a flight with 
the artist all unchaperoned? There is a real joy in 
just surrendering to the spirit of the artist who has 
revealed his God-touched soul in blossomed marble 
or rainbow-touched canvas — and in seeing what we 
see and feeling what we feel. 

It is high time to return to our nearly forgotten 
muttons, the sights of the Piazza del Duomo. A 
Florentine once asked me, " Do you really like the 
Duomo? Do you like it as well as Milan's cathe- 
dral?" That I assume presupposes a certain con- 
fessed lack of unanimity of like or dislike of Flor- 
ence's great church. I am glad, for I should be sorry 
to confess alone to some disappointment in this 
enormous creation of Arnolfo and Brunelleschi. Not 
with its bigness, for its bigness is real, even if hard to 
appreciate without repeated seeing, walking all around 
it occasionally, and above all without occasional look- 
ing down from San Miniato or Bellosguardo on it, 
rearing almost grotesquely immense from the huddled 
city. Then it is that the great dome becomes truly 
great; that it lifts and expands and soars. And then, 
also, it reveals its beauty despite its size, its lines 
that satisfy, that make a heavy thing light, a big 
thing graceful. 

It is hard to comprehend the size of any enormous 
thing, anything so unusually big that one's customary 
standards of measure fail to serve. Does one realize 
the bigness of St. Peter's, or the Paris Opera, or 



Piazza del Duomo 77 

the Cologne Cathedral? You must try to get at it 
indirectly. You look at the doves in St, Peter's and 
remember that they are carved as large as eagles. 
You walk slowly around, measuring with outstretched 
arms, one of the nave columns under the towers of 
Cologne's Dom. You recall how many hundreds of 
doors there are in the Opera. Even to experienced 
mountaineers the sheer half-mile and more of vertical 
cliff of El Capltan in the Yosemite is an uncompre- 
hended bigness. 

But the Florence Duomo has more than size of 
dome to consider. Does one like Its striped exterior, 
its vari-colored facade, its interior plainness? As to 
the striping and coloring of walls and fagade that is 
a matter not of the Florentine duomo alone, of course, 
but of most of the great churches of Tuscany and 
Umbria. For myself, these churches, or any others 
In Italy, are infinitely less beautiful than the cathe- 
drals of France, of Germany, and England. As 
Hopital points out, the Italian cathedrals are all 
hurt by the hampering of their architects by old 
tradition. Roman style is mixed with Gothic inspira- 
tion, while the pure Gothic of the French and English 
churches is the free expression of the untrammeled 
architect. There is necessary more than a science 
of lines and dimensions for a cathedral; there is 
always needed a self-expressing Christian soul. 

The Duomo stands now Isolated in its piazza; free 
from attached or adjoining buildings. In this It has 
an advantage over some of the German cathedrals, 
Mainz for conspicuous example. But when it comes 
to isolation, to freedom from interference and harass- 



78 



Beginning to See Florence 



ment by the jostling city, it is, of course, the English 
cathedrals, in their rich soft green closes, that have 
all the advantage. That isolation and quiet, that 
softness and beauty of setting make them the most 




The Duomo and Campanile. 

attractive and nearly perfect signs and abodes of the 
religious spirit in the world. 

But there is the other point of view. To pass at 
one step from the clangor and rush and grime of the 
city; from the earthiness of the crowded piazza to the 
heavenliness of the great duomo's spacious quiet and 
rest and cooling breath; does or does it not outweigh 
in beauty of contrast and lesson to man the more 
remote influence of the cathedral of the close? 

The interior of the Florentine duomo is plain and 
not beautiful, but it gives a certain satisfaction by its 



Piazza del Duomo 79 

spaciousness and lines and by Its few but mostly good 
monuments and windows. It has been much criticised 
for its lack of religious feeling. Rio says that one 
entering by the grand portal who wishes to pray or 
meditate has to walk more than a hundred meters 
through a great flat, naked, dry nave before he finds 
a place for his devotions. Hopital calls it a great 
cathedral, brilliant without, dark and cold within, 
where the Christian loses himself in seeking God, and 
the uninformed tourist has trouble in understanding. 
" Under the dome is a sort of grande piscine, sur- 
rounded by a marble balustrade (the isolated choir) 
to which are relegated the good God and the priests; 
the rest of the church is a hall in which one knows 
neither where nor how to pray." 

Of the monuments, the one immeasurably first in 
interest is that last work of sculpture of Michel- 
angelo, an unfinished Pieta. It has a tenderness of 
expression in grouping and faces that makes, in the 
half-light behind the great altar where the marble 
stands, a wonderfully strong impression. The rugged 
artist, the man of force and iron who delighted to 
portray force and iron in human muscle and torso, 
knew sorrow and softness as well. Grimm's account 
of the shaping of this last work of the master is 
interesting, 

" There was," he says, " in Michelangelo's 
atelier at Macello dei Corvi a marble group — Christ 
lying dead on his mother's lap, and Joseph of Arima- 
thea standing by her side — which he had begun about 
1545 and continued working at slowly for himself. 
He only undertook it that he might have something 



8o Beginning to See Florence 

at hand for his leisure hours. Vasari relates how he 
had once been sent by the Pope to Michelangelo, on 
account of some drawing somewhere about 1550, and 
had found him at this work. It was dark. Michel- 
angelo, however, who knew Vasari by his manner of 
knocking, came out with a lantern to see what was 
wanted. Urbino was thereupon sent to the upper 
story to fetch the wanted sheet, but Vasari tried 
while he was waiting to catch a glimpse of the group 
by the limited light, and he looked at the leg of 
Christ, at which Michelangelo was then working. 
Scarcely, however, had the latter observed where 
Vasari was looking than he let the lantern fall, so 
that it went out, leaving both in darkness. He then 
called to Urbino, the faithful old servant, to bring 
a light, and as he and Vasari left the partition in 
which the group stood, he said, ' I am so old that 
Death often pulls me by the coat to come with him, 
and some day I shall fall down like this lantern and 
my last spark of life will be extinguished.' 

*' Often in the middle of the night, if he could not 
sleep, he would get up and work at this last task. 
That he might have a good light for doing so, and 
yet not be himself hindered by it, he had a kind of 
pasteboard cap made, on the top of which he fixed a 
tallow candle which would not drop like wax, and 
which was not in his way. He left the group, how- 
ever, unfinished, because he discovered a flaw in the 
marble. He intended to break it to pieces, but he 
gave it afterwards to one of his young men. It is now 
in Florence under the dome of Santa Maria del Flore 
with the inscription beneath it that it is Michel- 



Piazza del Duomo 8i 

angelo's last work. The place is not unfavorable. 
The dim light that prevails there suits the group, 
which is only finished in its general mass." 

On the entrance (west) wall at either side of the 
great portal are two tall tombs, equestrian portraits 
in grisaille of two most unchurchly heroes; one, the 
famous English soldier-adventurer, John Hawk- 
wood, who fought for Florence for a price, in a 
time of her great need — he fought against her first, 
— and the other, the Italian condottiero Niccolo da 
Tolentino. The Hawkwood portrait is by Paolo 
Uccello, the Niccolo by Andrea del Castagno. In 
the right aisle there is a portrait monument to 
Brunelleschi by Buggiano, and a bust of Giotti by 
Benedetto da Maiano. In the left aisle is a 
curious picture by Domenico di Michelino, including 
a portrait of Dante, a view of old Florence, and a 
scene from the Divine Comedy. In this also is a 
statue by Donatello. The bronze door of the north 
sacristy and a terra-cotta relief of the Resurrection 
over it are by Luca della Robbia, as is also a relief of 
the Ascension over the door of the south sacristy. 
The stained-glass windows are by Ghiberti, Donatello, 
Paolo Uccello, A. Gaddl, and others. The marble 
screen around the octagonal choir, and its figures in 
low relief, were designed by Baccio d'Agnolo. The 
frescoes in the dome ceiling were begun by Vasari 
and finished by Zucchero. 

To appreciate fully the interior of any cathedral it 
is necessary to see it under two conditions. First 
one should see and sit in It and walk slowly about it 
when it is empty, save for the few silent worshipers 



82 Beginning to See Florence 

kneeling here and there before the altars in the 
chapels. Then he should see it at High Mass on some 
day of fiesta when all the world is there; when the 
Cardinal or Archbishop is officiating, and the whole 
chapter is assisting; when the organ and the chanting 
voices, the choir, and perhaps the aiding orchestra, 
are filling it with rolling sound; when the sun rays 
from the clerestory windows slant, glistening and 
solid-golden, through the haze of odorous smoke, 
and the rich vestments of the priests hang heavy 
down the broad backs, the tall miter of the Cardinal 
is slowly doffed and donned, and the tinkling bell of 
the Host sends a great multitude to its knees in rever- I 
ent or awesome silence. When we heard the Mass J 
of San Giovanni Battista in Florence's duomo, we j 
got a new idea of its greatness, and its glory, as one 1 
must under similar circumstances of any cathedral. ' 

The dome seen from the inside repeats again much 
of the impression of beauty and stateliness that it ) 
gives from the outside. Indeed, the dome is the thing j 
about the Duomo, and there is hardly anything more : 
interesting reading in the history of Florentine hap- j 
penings than the story of how Brunelleschi built it. 
And we like to see him each time we visit the Piazza r 
sitting there in his stone chair by the wall of the 1 
Misericordia, with his eyes lifted to his triumph. ' 

When you have read the story — you will find it in |l 
Vasari — you will like to go into the Cathedral 'I 
Museum on the piazza opposite the choir of the j 
Duomo and see there the various models and designs, 
including Brunelleschi's own for the lantern, made 
from early to modern times in connection with the 




Plioto. Brogi 



Singing Boys 

Luca della Robbia: Duomo Museum 



Piazza del Duomo 83 

church's building. And there are those famous sing- 
ing galleries of Luca della Robbia and Donatello, 
and the silver altar from the Baptistry. What a carol- 
ing chorus is della Robbia's ! what a mad romp of 
chubby legs and arms is Donatello's ! You open your 
mouth to sing aloud as you face the one; you balance 
on your toes to pirouette and spring as you turn to 
the other. 

Opposite the modern fagade of many colors of the 
Cathedral, the Baptistry lifts its ancient walls. It 
dates from about 600 and is the church of San 
Giovanni Battista, the patron saint of Florence. The 
Duomo's real name, by the way, is the church of 
Santa Maria del Fiore (Saint Mary of the Flower), 
the name being got, it is said, from the sending to 
the Cathedral, by Pope Eugenio IV, of a golden rose 
" by great courtesy as to a princess." The church 
under this name belonged for a long time to the 
powerful wool-weavers' guild. 

At the east front of the Baptistry, before the 
closed bronze doors and between the two broken and 
iron-bound red porphyry pillars that came from Pisa 
eight hundred years ago, there is always a little elbow- 
ing, neck-craning crowd. About it cluster cabmen 
and venders of postal cards, medallions, and trinkets. 
Above it lift gesticulating, pointing hands. Other 
hands hold up the red-backed books, and all languages 
murmur the stories of the panels, the name of the 
artist, the date of his success, and lastly, perhaps, the 
curt sentence that half a man's working lifetime was 
given to the fashioning of these doors. It must all be 
very gratifying to Ghiberti's shade to see this appre- 



84 Beginning to See Florence 

ciation of his genius and his industry; this shifting, 
ever-flowing, and changing group, coming from and 
dispersing to the four quarters of the earth, and 
carrying with it the memory of ten minutes spent 
before his achievement. But it must be just a bit 
ludicrous to this eternal shade to note a certain dis- 
proportion in the time devoted to producing and that 
given to appreciation. 

But there are some who come again and again to 
this picture gallery in the side of the Baptistry, this 
garden of sculpture in bronze on a doorway, these 
gates of Paradise, or worthy to be them, as Michel- 
angelo shall have said. The old sacristan of Santa 
Annunziata — the most interesting sacristan in Flor- 
ence — as he placed us before the wonderful panels 
of Giovanni da Bologna in his church, mur- 
mured that if Michelangelo had only seen these 
panels after he had uttered his famous praise of 
Ghiberti's doors, he would have had to say of 
Bologna's work that it was worthy of something be- 
yond Paradise. And there are also Donatello's 
bronze reliefs on one of the two stairless pulpits in 
San Lorenzo. But the voice of the world has de- 
clared, with Michelangelo, for Ghiberti, and hence 
this ever-forming, melting, and re-forming group of 
pilgrims by the east face of the Baptistry. 

Outside there are still to see Ghiberti's other earlier 
doors on the north; and Andrea Pisano's, on the 
south, still earlier and, to some, most interesting of 
all. Inside the Baptistry there is not much that 
catches the casual eye, although all there is, even to 
the sacred emptiness itself, echoes with the low rever- 



Piazza del Duomo 85 

berations of history and historic names. There are 
the thirteenth century mosaics in the choir, the tomb 
of Pope John XXIII by Donatello and Michelozzo, 
the wooden statue of Mary Magdalen by Donatello, 
the antique columns, the old black and white marble 
floor, and the great font in which generations of 
Florentines have been baptized. 

On the occasion of the same festal Mass at which 
we " assisted " in the Cathedral, the famous relics of 
the Baptistry were exposed under glass in a golden 
casket, set up for the adoration of the multitude. A 
constant stream of worshipers crowded by the casket, 
most of them kissing its glass face. Some with cer- 
tain doubts, perhaps, as to the efficacy of the relics In 
a struggle against the danger of microbic infection, 
contented themselves with rubbing their calloused or 
gloved finger-tips against the sacred object. When 
the Archbishop finally came, under an umbrella of 
green silk, from the Cathedral for his prostration be- 
fore the relics the kissing was turned to him, and his 
rich skirts and extended hands were touched by scores 
of reverent lips as he slowly passed along. 

As we came to the Piazza one day just at noon, the 
great bell in Giotto's campanile began tolling and all 
the time we were in sound of it the tolling continued. 
It sounded from twelve to one o'clock, which pro- 
claimed the death of a priest of the Duomo chapter. 
Had this passing soul been that of a higher prelate, 
two hours of the bell's tolling would have been 
wafted after it. This bell tells the hours to all 
Florence, and it calls a mystic cryptogram to the 
black-cowled Misericordia in times of special need of 



86 Beginning to See Florence 

their services. The house of the Misericordia, the 
brotherhood of pity, on the south side of the Piazza 
was formerly used for the Florence Court of Trus- 
tees. " The beautiful Loggia [del Bigallo] oppo- 
site the Baptistry was built for them by Orcagna," 
says Mrs. Ross in her excellent account of the 
brotherhood in " Old Florence and Modern Tus- 
cany," *' but fell to the Bigallo [another con- 
fraternity] in 1523." In the present chapel of 
the Misericordia there is a beautiful altar-piece 
by Luca della Robbia and " in the secre- 
tary's room a curious picture by Cigoli of the Piazza 
del Duomo during the great plague." In the deli- 
cate little Bigallo there is a fresco attributed to 
Giottino and with it a few other collected pictures 
and sculptures. But the beauty and joy of the 
Bigallo lies in its exterior. It is one of the most 
charming bits of architecture in all Florence. 

The Misericordia become such familiar figures to 
any repeated visitor to the Piazza — and are met so 
often here and there in the streets in a little group 
about a low, coffin-like hand carriage which they are 
trundling along, — that a further word about them 
ought to be of interest. They constitute a charitable 
order, not connected with any church and founded, 
according to tradition, in 1240. Their benevolence 
takes the form of a free service to the poor sick and 
dead of the city, whom they take in wheeled litters 
from house to hospital or cemetery. They also act 
as free nurses to the poor in their own houses. They 
are voluntary workers recruited from all ranks of 
the citizens, and are organized with four groups 



Piazza del Duomo 87 

or degrees : the Capi di Guardia of seventy-two mem- 
bers, and the Glornanti or day-workers, the Strac- 
ciafoglle (paper-tearers) and Buonevoglli (well-inten- 
tioned) of several hundred members. " No ap- 
prentice is admitted into the confraternity without 
his master's consent, nor any youth under age, save by 
his father's wish. No servant in livery can belong to 
it, nor can any barber, hairdresser, coachman, cobbler, 
seller of fish or of salt meats and sausages, or any per- 
son following a trade which is considered mean or 
vile. No man can belong to the Misericordia who 
has been condemned in a court of law, or is notoriously 
an evil liver " (Ross). 

Over the Duomo and the Baptistry, the Bigallo 
and the Misericordia, over the swift, picturesque life 
of the whole crowded piazza lifts the pride of the 
city, the triumph of Giotto, the campanile that has 
been the special glory of Florence for more than five 
centuries. No degree of audacity ought to warrant 
a single attempted new word or phrase of descrip- 
tion of this dream-tower in rose and white and green, 
this " tower worked like a lace and ornamented like a 
precious furniture, that rises with a bold and pure 
thrust toward the sky and bears there the sonorous 
prayer of its bells." 

Joseph Hopital believes he has discovered the sym- 
bolism of this precious campanile. It is the progres- 
sive ascent of the soul toward the celestial ideal. Its 
four stages form four degrees of a mystic stair. The 
first, or lowest, without windows, bears reliefs relating 
to things of the earth, to man's earthly life. The 
second stage is made lighter by a double-pointed arch 



88 Beginning to See Florence 

one each side. One has quit the earth ; one breathes 
a purer air. The statues are of prophets, sibyls, 
patriarchs, heralds inspired by immortal destinies. 
The third stage, still higher and with twin openings 
on each face, seems smaller and more delicate. It 
also bears sculptures of figures of the spirit. Finally, 
at the summit is the belfry, with its great open arches 
and its bells in the pure light and free air. 

One midnight, after a festa day, we saw the tower 
illuminated; not boldly, glaringly, like an exposition 
tower all pricked out in electric flashes, but modestly, 
delicately, from within, by a few scattered lamps. 
It was simply made softly radiant, as old stone phos- 
phorescent in the night. Its fragile sculptures seemed 
curious natural outgrowths on its walls, its slight 
pilasters and casings, all indistinct in the evanescence, 
lost their regularity and rigor of repetition, and this 
triumph of the hand and brain of man, rising from 
the dark walled-in space of the piazza, seemed to 
transform into a great slender pink and white stalag- 
mite, lifting from the floor of some vast cave and 
illumined by its own mysterious radiance. 

Swirling about the bases of these centuries-old 
monuments to the hands and brains and souls of 
wonderful dead Florentines, and mingling its medley 
of sounds with the clear tones of the tower bells, is 
the flowing life of Florence to-day; the clangor and 
grinding of the electric trams which run on every 
side of the Duomo and make their very headquarters 
under the campanile, the calls of venders of giornale 
and tickets of tombola, the ebb and flow of the curi- 
ous tourists with their attendant horde of crying cab- 



Piazza del Duomo 89 

men, guides, and souvenir sellers, the laugh and chat- 
ter of the idlers under the canopies of the sidewalk 
cafes, the portentous coming and going of the black- 
robed Misericordia. 

We leave it, this throbbing piazza, with regret 
each time the fading day calls us to our hill-side home. 
And no sooner are we come to our vine-covered house 
of quiet and rest and fragrant airs than we turn and 
look down upon the city at our feet and see again 
the great dome and slender tower of bells. And as 
night comes on we sit and watch the lights burst out 
in the street and open square, and pick out again on 
the star-studded map of the city that focal spot of 
all that Florence was and is. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE CHURCHES 
THE SMALL ONES 

THE churches of Florence may be conveniently 
grouped into the large ries and the smaller 
ones; categories not based on esthetic distinctions, 
to be sure, but on easily seized and much-used ones. 
For not Americans alone use size and cost as distinc- 
tions of interest and merit. As one walks down the 
long nave of St. Peter's one sees marks that indicate 
where various other great cathedral naves would 
reach; here Milan, here St. Paul's, here Cologne, 
silent witnesses to the material bigness of this church 
of the Popes. 

There are not four hundred churches in Florence, 
as my hard-working tourist friend, Mr. Smith, thinks 
he found in Rome. Indeed, in the group of larger 
churches there are but five besides the Duomo, 
namely: Santa Croce, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria 
Novella, Santissima Annunziata, and Santo Spirito. 
The smaller ones are fifty, more or less, of which the 
Badia, Or San Michele, Santa Trinita, Ognissanti, 
San Marco, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santi Apos- 
toli, and Sant' Ambrogio are most interesting either 
because of their beauty of architecture, or of their 

go 




Photo. Brogi 



Virgin and St. Benedict 

Filippino Lippi : Badia 



The Small Churches 91 

contained treasures of painting and sculpture. How- 
ever, the special Interest of San Marco Church Is 
neither that of form nor interior frescoes and 
statues, but wholly an interest of historical associa- 
tion. It Is the church of the monastery of Savona- 
rola and Fra Angellco. 

No one can be looking at Florence through spec- 
tacles more golden than mine just now, and yet It Is 
hard for me to see in the Florence churches, especially 
in the larger and more pretentious ones, anything of 
the warmth or beauty of gold. That is. In the form 
and finish of the buildings themselves. There are 
no rarer or more beautiful church contents of fres- 
coes and paintings, pulpits and tombs anywhere. So 
many were the Florentine geniuses of art, and so 
prodigal were they of their labors, that there Is 
hardly any least church in the city but has some 
precious picture or marble. Take, for example, 
the little Badia opposite the Bargello. You enter 
by a door carved by Benedetto da Rovez- 
zano under a lunette by Luca della Robbla. Within 
are exquisite wall-tombs by Mino da Flesole and 
Benedetto da Maiano, and in the little Chapel 
of the Bianchi Is Fllippino LIppI's wonderful 
Madonna and St. Bernard. The splendid carved 
wooden ceiling Is by Segalonl. All this In a small, bare 
interior, cubical In shape, with projecting recesses, and 
gray and plain to commonplaceness. How unassum- 
ingly this little box of a church holds Its group of 
art treasures that a cathedral ten times Its size and 
pretension to architectural glory might well envy. 

Perhaps La Badia is an especially well endowed ex- 



92 The Small Churches 

ample of the Florentine churches of the smaller size. 
But to take another at random, how many Continental 
cathedrals have anything to offer in the way of genu- 
ine creation comparable to the treasures of the Bran- 
cacci chapel in the church of the Carmine? In this 
chapel Masolino and his boy pupil of flashing genius, 
Masaccio, have left their best work, work that 
initiated and determined truth in art. Here Michel- 
angelo is said to have studied, and here it is really 
certain many of the greatest names in Florentine art 
got both instruction and inspiration. 

Along with Masolino and Masaccio's frescoes in 
the chapel are some by F'ilippino Lippi. Among 
these latter is a harrowingly realistic one of the mar- 
tyrdom of St. Peter. The bleeding body is nailed 
head downward on a cross that is being lifted by a 
rope. In a central group of three figures in this 
picture the middle one, with its face looking out and 
with the finely lighted arched open doorway for a 
background, is the artist's own. Among Masaccio's 
pictures the expelling of Adam and Eve holds one's 
eyes longest. The two figures, crude and ill-drawn as 
they are — the right leg of Adam is an anatomical 
monstrosity — ^have a tremendous strength and con- 
vincingness. They come as near the core of the 
suffering as picture may. Of extraordinary quality 
also is the picture of the bringing of the Emperor's 
son to life, attributed to Masaccio and Lippi together. 
It holds a host of carefully drawn faces in realistic 
attitudes — a masterful composition. 

In the sacristy of this church are some frescoes by 
Agnolo Gaddi, and in the choir is a marble tomb, by 




Photo. Alinari 



Detail uk Altar 
Benedetto da Rovezzano: Santa Trinita 



The Small Churches 93 

Benedetto da Rovezzano, of Piero Soderini, one of 
the historic gonfalonieri of Florence and repre- 
sentative in his life and family of much of Florentine 
history. Indeed, were one to close one's eyes entirely 
to the beauty of the paintings and sculptures of the 
Florentine churches and see in them only their his- 
toric significance, their interest would still be pro- 
found. 

Another small church, Santa Trinita — said to 
have been called by Michelangelo his " sweetheart," 
as San Miniato is said to have been called his " bride " 
— is also unusually distinguished by its pictures and 
carvings. Conspicuous among them are Domenico 
Ghirlandajo's frescoes in the little Sassetti chapel 
(right of the choir) . They represent scenes from the 
life of St. Francis and immediately impel the visitor 
to compare them with Giotto's similar series in Santa 
Croce. The comparison may be concentrated on the 
two treatments of the death of the saint. The attempt 
of Ghirlandajo to relieve the necessary artificialness of 
the scene — for it seems there really must be one figure 
at each of the stigmata — by introducing numerous 
accessory figures lends but little toward its convincing- 
ness. It simply reveals the decadence in naive belief 
and the artistic sophistication that came with a cen- 
tury and a half of years. 

Other objects of interest in this church are a carved 
marble shrine (right of the central door) and marble 
altar (fifth chapel, right), by Benedetto da Rovez- 
zano; an Annunciation by Lorenzo Monaco (fourth 
chapel, right) ; a crucifix and a strange wooden Mag- 
dalen (first chapel, left) by Desiderio da Settignano; 



94 The Small Churches 

a beautiful tomb of a bishop of Fiesole (second 
chapel left of the choir) by Luca della Robbia; and 
finally the crucifix of San Giovanni Gualberto " origi- 
nally in San Miniato, and brought thence in great 
state (1671) by order of Duke Cosimo III. The 
Christ is related to have bowed the head on the day 
when San Giovanni pardoned his brother's murderer." 
The interior of the church itself will have to most 
an unmistakable charm and religious feeling. 

Not all of the smaller Florentine churches are plain 
and simple inside like the Badia, the Carmine, and 
Santa Trinita. Ognissanti, for example, has a taw- 
dry decorated interior. But this does not prevent one 
from getting much pleasure from a visit to it. It 
has a beautiful fresco by Ghirlandajo of the De- 
scent from the Cross, with a lunette above it of 
our Lady of Mercy, " sheltering members of the 
Vespucci family." Besides this chief prize there is 
also a fresco by Ghirlandajo of St. Jerome and one 
of St. Augustine by Botticelli (opposite each other on 
the sides of the nave). Botticelli is buried in the 
church. 

Of special interest to Americans in Ognissanti is 
the tomb of Amerigo Vespucci, the navigator. In 
the wall above the grave is the curious Vespucci coat- 
of-arms, with its seven wasps. One can indulge oneself 
before this grave in musing over the significance of 
the rolling tide of Americans that passes constantly 
over the worn covering stone of this bold, solitary 
visitor to America four hundred years ago. So well 
returned is this visit nowadays that a material part 
of the financial support of Vespucci's poorer country 



The Small Churches 95 

comes from these restless wanderers from the newer 
land. 

The refectory of the old convent of Ognissanti 
(entered by a separate door on the street) contains 
a Last Supper by Ghirlandajo (see the chapter 
" Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls "). 

In the very heart of the business and social activity 
of Florence — just a step off the Piazza Vittorio 
Emanuele — one may pass through a swinging door 
out of the noise and glare of the populous piazza 
into the beautiful dim quiet of a chapel of fascinat- 
ing attractiveness, the sanctuary of Or San Michele. 
This single square, groined room at the bottom of 
the towering memorial building of the Florentine 
guilds of the fourteenth century is a priceless jewel 
box containing a priceless jewel, the famous shrine or 
tabernacle of Orcagna. 

This votive offering commemorates the cessation 
of a plague and is the sum of twelve years of cease- 
less labor. It is a mosaic-incrusted, marble structure, 
domed, pinnacled, and sculptured, that stands easily 
first in its originality and beauty among the many 
tabernacles of Italy. Around its base is a running 
series of exquisite marble reliefs inclosed in hexag- 
onal and octagonal frames, while at its back is a 
larger relief covering the whole surface. The shrine 
shelters a painting of the Madonna and Child by Ugo 
of Siena. An iron grill about the base bears at its 
angles tall slender columns with angels and candles. 
The tabernacle should be seen, if possible, on a bright 
day when the sunlight makes gold of it. Then all the 
delicacy and marvel of the sculpturing can be appre- 



96 The Small Churches 

ciated. At other times a boy with lighted candle will 
show you the reliefs, naively telling their tale and 
tenderly rubbing and patting the little figures as he 
talks. 

But it was not as the housing of a unique gem of 
art that Or San Michele first became known to us; 
but rather as a chapel filled at candle-light with a 
reverent and spellbound group of worshipers. They 
overflowed the few benches, and sat on the altar 
steps or stood leaning against pillars or dimly out- 
lined in shadowy corners and crowding about the 
very feet of the preacher himself. We slipped in 
quietly as sightseers, and were soon merged into the 
tranced group held by the spell of the scene, the hour, 
and the eager passionate voice of the preacher. It 
was twilight of the day of San Giovanni Battista, 
and the tale and the exhortation came from the life 
of the ascetic saint of the wilderness. It was the 
call to simplicity and devotion, to faith and sacrifice. 
And yet it was almost daring in the liberality and 
enlightenment of its exposition. That priest should 
go far in the new Catholic Church, or be snuffed out 
soon by the still weighty hand of the reactionaries. 

Since then Or San Michele has been our favorite 
place to realize that Italy's churches are not merely 
art museums nor yet altogether places of extravagant 
display and pompous religious ceremonial. High 
Mass is not the time or place to see revealed the true 
religious spirit of the rank and file of the Roman 
Catholic Church in Italy; the incense obscures the 
sight, the glittering robes distract It. But at vespers 
every night In the little churches and In the little 



The Small Churches 97 

chapels of the big churches gather the thousands to 
recite and pray together under the fatherly guidance 
of some old silvery-haired priest with a little boy at 
his side. It is then that the Virgin and the Christ 
child are real, and the sacred wafer becomes in truth 
the Body. 

I cannot go on with the enumeration of even the 
more interesting of the smaller churches. But one 
should not forget to find little Sant' Ambrogio with 
its beautiful altar by Mino da Fiesole, who is buried 
there ; nor the ancient hidden-away church of the Santi 
Apostoli said to have been founded by Charlemagne ! 
In It are a tomb by Benedetto da Rovezzano and a 
clborium by the successors of the della Robbia. 

There are others of the little churches, too, that 
well repay their seeking out; a graceful Interior, a 
rare old picture, a curious pulpit or carved tomb, or a 
haunting memory of the famous men and women 
whose lives touched or whose mouldering bodies lie 
here. Much of the history of Florence, history that 
is romance realized, can be read from the monu- 
ments of the Florentine churches. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE CHURCHES (continued) 

THE LARGER ONES 

THE tomb monuments spoken of at the close of 
the last chapter are most abundant In the 
larger churches. Santa Croce, for example, makes, 
if one may speak so irreverently, a specialty of them. 
On either hand, as one walks down the long nave, 
are the records in sculptured marble and carved 
words of Florentine history, while in the lofty 
chapels of transepts and apse are the frescoes that 
tell the double story of Florentine piety and genius. 
Santa Croce is a spacious church; more than any 
other in Florence it gives something of that feeling 
of free largeness, of open extent, that one asks for | 
in great churches. The wholly open nave and the 
aisles unbroken by side chapels, together with the 
extreme shallowness of apse and its adjoining chapels, 
make the whole length and breadth of the building 
immediately obvious. But the bare grayish and dirty I 
white walls, the bleak and ugly side altars of Vasari, 
and the obtrusive modernity of many of the monu- 
ments emphasize a feeling of irritation which has been 
stirred up even before entrance by the sight of the 
staring new fagade. 




Photo. Alinari 



Pulpit 

Benedetto da Maiano: Santa Croce 



The Larger Churches 99 

The farther one walks down the nave, however, 
the more allayed becomes this irritation because of 
the growing beauty of the lofty, narrow, shallow apse 
with its softly glowing fourteenth century windows 
and its frescoed walls, and the interesting glimpses of 
the Giotto pictures in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels 
quiet and gratify. And finally just before reaching 
the transepts there are on either hand those precious 
pieces of decorative sculpture, the tombs of Mar- 
zuppini and Bruini by Desiderio and Rossellino, the 
Settignano stone-carvers. 

Indeed Santa Croce is exceptionally endowed with 
works of the sculptors of the decorative school. The 
beautiful pulpit, the most beautiful in Italy some 
have esteemed it, is by Benedetto da Maiano; while 
the charming relief of Madonna and Child on the 
first right-hand pillar of the nave is by Antonio Ros- 
sellino, younger brother of Bernardo who carved the 
Bruini tomb. Finally, Mino da Fiesole is represented 
by a tabernacle in the Medici chapel. 

If only Dante, Galileo, Alfieri, Machiavelli, Ros- 
sini, Mazzini, Michelangelo, and the rest of the 
great ones burled here could have had tombs by these 
master carvers, what a wonder of beauty this Floren- 
tine pantheon would be. Indeed, if even a certain 
virtue of negation could have been exercised, and 
where Desiderio and the Rossellini could not carve, 
simple plates with the great names had been held 
sufficient ! 

Hopital exclaims of Michelangelo's tomb: "The 
creator of the grave monuments of the Medici con- 
demned no doubt for expiation of his sins to sleep 



lOO The Larger Churches 

under the work of a Vasari ! Still he Is less punished 
than his rival in glory, the painter of the delicate 
Madonnas, who wished that an image of the Virgin 
Mary should figure on his tomb, and whose bones in 
the Pantheon at Rome are crushed by a statue of 
a grosse fcmme of which the sight would have out- 
raged him." 

But let us be content with the positive blessings. 
Besides exquisite marbles and refulgent old glass (the 
beautiful rose window is from a design by Ghiberti) 
Santa Croce has its famous frescoes. Giotto's 
pictures, much restored, telling the stories of 
St. Francis and the two St. Johns, are in the first 
two chapels to the right of the apse, and Taddeo 
Gaddi's of the life of the Virgin and the Christ Child 
are in the Baroncelli chapel in the south transept. 
Of the Giotto frescoes only the drawing and com- 
position can now be fairly attributed to the master, for 
the colors are mostly the restorers', although follow- 
ing, of course, Giotto's tints. The pictures can be seen 
very well, especially the lower ones, and next to the 
master's work at Padua and Assisi are his most im- 
portant series. 

With eyes filled by the piety and sweetness of 
Santa Croce's tombs and frescoes, one is likely to 
forget that it was this same great House of the Lord 
that housed the Florentine tribunal of the Inquisition 
and that was the plotting and bloodthirsty center 
of the clerical antagonism to Savonarola. One may 
wander slowly through the Medici chapel (built for 
Cosimo by Michelozzo) and the Pazzi chapel in the 
cloisters and through the great and lesser refectories, 




riii.lo. Alin.Li 



Detail of the Pulpit 
Benedetto da Maiano: Santa Croce 



The Larger Churches loi 

and, If he have good eyes, behold the moving 
scenes of Florentine history that passed here; the 
Pazzis plotting the Medici murder in the Duomo; 
the masked inquisitors condemning Acco d'Ascoli and 
Tommaso Crudeli to the pyre and holding their 
horrors so vividly before persecuted Galileo that for 
the moment the flesh overcomes the reason. 

Servite Santissima Annunziata, " the richest church 
in the city," and Augustinian Santo Spirito, the 
church of the beautiful lines, may be referred to with 
some brevity, Santo Spirito is a fifteenth century 
church of Brunelleschi's design. Its beautiful cam- 
panile across the river grows more and more loved the 
more often it is seen — and all the dwellers along the 
north bank of the Arno from Ponte Vecchio to the 
Cascine see it every time they look from their win- 
dows. Its fagade is unfinished- — a pleasing relief 
after facing Santa Croce's finished one — and modern 
pictures of little interest replace the ancient treasures 
of most of its altars. But its spacious, perfectly pro- 
portioned interior, which has echoed to the voice of 
Martin Luther, if tradition be true, is restful, re- 
ligious, and truly harmonious. In a chapel (third) in 
the west transept is a Madonna and Child by Filip- 
pino Lippi. 

Santissima Annunziata Is smaller than the other 
large churches, but the contracted appearance of Its 
interior is due In part to the filling or replacement 
of its aisles by lateral chapels, and to the hiding of 
its large rotunda-like apsidal choir by a high altar 
under the tribune dome. In addition the church Is 
crowded with elaborate decorations in the way of 



I02 The Larger Churches 

banners, crimson hangings, golden and glass can- 
delabra and the like. All this helps to make impos- 
sible any feeling of spaciousness that the actual size 
of the church might warrant. This richness of drap- 
ery decoration may be necessary to maintain the char- 
acter of the church as the richest and most fashion- 
able one in the city; but it effectively repels all interest 
in it as a thing of beauty or majesty. It contains, 
however, some admirable works. 

On the walls of the arcaded court in front of the 
main entrance is an interesting series of frescoes by 
Andrea del Sarto. There are less interesting ones 
also by several other artists. Within the church, or 
rather over the door leading into it from the cloisters, 
is del Sarto's charming and celebrated Madonna del 
Sacco. There is also an Assumption by Perugino in 
a dark chapel on the left of the nave; a characteristic 
piece of sculpture by Bandinclli, a Pieta for his own 
tomb, in the right transept; and in the middle chapel 
in the rotunda choir behind the high altar are several 
beautiful bronze reliefs by Giovanni da Bologna (or 
his pupils). The church is the burial place of both 
Andrea del Sarto and Giovanni da Bologna. 

At the left of the main entrance is the ornate 
shrine built for Piero de' Medici after Michelozzo's 
design. It is set about with great candles and many 
heavy, swinging, ever-burning brass lamps, the gifts 
of the noble families of the city. And the memory 
of this sumptuous thing is, on the whole, a fitting one 
with which to leave the church. 

There are several small pictures by Giovanni 
Signorini in the modern gallery upstairs in the Ac- 



The Larger Churches 



103 



cademia, which are of much interest, whether good 
paintings or not, for they reproduce scenes of carnival 
and festa hfe in old Florence, One of them shows 
the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella on a day of the 
chariot races. The banked seats, the crowded people, 




'^^^q°J^^] 







Santa Maria Novella, " the great Dominican church that still 
dominates the now almost deserted piazza." 

the chariots in their mad course in the limited space 
of the piazza making their dangerous turns about the 
goal pillars; all is very live. 

Over this scene lifts the great Dominican church 
that still dominates the now almost deserted piazza, 
with its two pillars standing forlornly memorial of 
the old gay days. Perhaps the tomb niches in the 
facade and adjoining arcades were full then; they 



I04 The Larger Churches 

are empty now. And the fagade then could not 
have been so roughened by weather and grimed by 
smoke and dust as it is to-day. But it is still a 
beautiful front; certainly more beautiful than that 
of any other Florence church. 

Within there is a softness of light and a fair 
openness that compensate for the uninteresting fea- 
tures that line the long nav'e. Only one of these ar- 
rests attention: Bernardo Rossellino's monument of 
the Beata Villana (right aisle near the second altar; 
formerly in the Rucellai chapel in the right transept). 
The holy maid is sleeping behind curtains that angels 
are drawing back. 

But once the transepts are reached the passing 
interest of curiosity becomes changed to warm de- 
light and eager enthusiasm. For here, at the head 
of the church, is concentrated a wonderful group of 
treasures. 

Behind the parti-colored marble high altar lift the 
beautiful fifteenth century windows of the choir. 
This high but shallow and narrow choir is perhaps 
Santa Maria Novella's choicest spot; for all of its 
three walls are covered by Ghirlandajo's fascinating 
frescoes of Florentine men and women in Florentine 
costumes and setting, but arranged in the holy guise 
of scenes from the life of the Virgin and of John the 
Baptist. They have a most appealing naturalness 
and grace, and the softest and most varied of color 
harmonies. The faces and figures are as human as 
may be, and seem, someway, recognizable; indeed, 
many of them must have been really recognizable to 
Ghirlandajo's contemporaries. Most of the settings 



The Larger Churches 105 

for the figures are elaborately architectural, with 
arcades, walls, pillars, and decorated stairways. 

More can be learned from such frescoes as these, 
and from the canvases of the Florentine painters, of 
the aspect of old Florence and its people than from 
many ponderous tomes of descriptive minutiae. 
Streets and piazzas and houses, costumes and man- 
ners, and the portrait faces of nobles and artists, 
poets and poet-sung women are all revealed In the 
convenient vehicle of scenes from Old and New 
Testament history. 

In the StrozzI chapel In the left transept are the 
famous frescoes by the brothers Orcagna of the Last 
Judgment (wall behind the altar), with its portrait 
of Dante, Heaven, with more than two hundred 
beatified faces, and Hell, with its seven circles of the 
damned enduring realistically their various effective 
tortures. We may be tempted to laugh at this naive 
Hell, but the Florentines of the fourteenth century 
did not laugh at all at such pictures. And Orcagna 
was intent on saving his contemporaries, not us. In- 
deed, when looking at any of the old pictures we must 
keep In mind always the difference in theologic point 
of view between us and the Italians of six centuries 
ago. The ludicrous realities of the Day of Judg- 
ment, as seen in a picture of Fra Angelico or Or- 
cagna, were the most belleved-In things of the time. 
And the eternal joys of Heaven or the ceaseless 
writhings In Hell, as portrayed with impartial fidel- 
ity by the painter prophets of the old days, were as 
certainly then the fate of every man as to-day many 
hold a blank nothingness to be. 



io6 The Larger Churches 

In the Gondi chapel (first to left of the choir) is 
the wooden crucifix of Brunelleschi, which is the sub- 
ject of one of Vasari's pleasantly interesting, if not 
certainly truthful stories; that one which makes 
Donatello drop the breakfast eggs in amazement at 
this wonder work of his friend. In the Filippo 
Strozzi chapel (right of the choir) are some frescoes 
by Filippino Lippi, with curiously heavy scowling 
faces not at all like the more usual smoothness of this 
gamin genius. Here also is a marble tomb carved 
by Benedetto da Maiano. The four flying angels, 
the two winged heads of cherubim, and the appeal- 
ing faces of the Madonna and Child in the tondo, all 
live in the flesh and blood translucence of old rubbed 
marble. 

Up the steep stone stair In the right transept is 
the bare chapel of the Ruccllal, with the ancient won- 
der picture of Clmabue, or, by the higher criticism, 
Ducclo. The face of the Madonna, however, as in- 
deed the whole picture, is most Cimabue-llkc in con- 
ception. The stories of the artist's great triumph 
in producing the picture, the king's visit to his 
humble studio to see it, and the procession of all 
the people which bore it to the church, lend it an 
interest which, to most. Its actual self as work of 
art will lack. Yet some have found much expression 
in this '* broad-faced Virgin " of the early days. 

The remaining prides of Santa Maria Novella are 
the old cloisters, with the now nearly vanished naive 
frescoes of Paolo Uccello and Dello Delli; and that 
Spanish Chapel on which Ruskin lavished such a spe- 
cial extravagance of praise. Even the untutored 



The Larger Churches 



107 



visitor will recognize the great interest of these well- 
preserved and lively frescoes — religious rebuses, 
Joseph Hopital calls them — whether or not the subtle- 
ties of artistic genius reveal themselves to him. In- 
deed, there seems to be some difference of opinion 




The cloisters of Santa Maria Novella. 

among the tutored as to their actual art values. 
But the anecdotal values are certainly there; and the 
fresh colors, the realistic faces and attitudes, and the 
free play of naive imagination make the frescoes 
among the most interesting in Florence. 

Their subjects include such more usual scenes as the 
Crucifixion and the Resurrection, but also a number 
of allegories which are the pictures of most interest. 
On the right wall is imagined the triumph of the 
Church as represented and defined by the Dominicans. 



io8 The Larger Churches 

In this picture the Dominicans as dogs are seen attack- . 
ing and kilhng the heretics shown as wolves. On the ] 
left wall is the personal triumph of St. Thomas 
Aquinas with a remarkable allegorical series represent- 
ing the various virtues, sciences, and phases of learning 
by female figures, with a corresponding series of con- 
ventional portrait faces of distinguished representa- 
tives of each of these aspects of virtue and learning; 
St. Augustine for charity, Justinian for civil law, 
Euclid for geometry, Cicero for rhetoric, and so on. 
The frescoes are commonly attributed to Taddeo 
Gaddi and Simone Memmi. 

Cold and bare, outside and inside, is San Lorenzo, 
the great Medici-built church. Here lie the Medici 
tombs in which Michelangelo reached the height of 
his genius in sculpture. Indeed it were as well to call 
it a Michelangelo as a Medici church; for as 
architect and sculptor, the great artist gave an im- 
portant part of his life to this historic structure. 
And here was held the magnificent funeral over his 
body when he returned to Florence, dead, after thirty 
years of voluntary exile in Rome. 

Other great names of art are associated with the 
building and embellishing of San Lorenzo. Brunel- 
leschi was the first architect, dying after seeing only 
the Old Sacristy completed. It is this part of the 
church which, next to the New Sacristy where the 
Michelangelo sculptures are, is the richest in its 
legacy of Renaissance art. For in it is a veritable 
museum of Donatello reliefs, busts, and statuettes, 
besides a pavement sarcophagus constructed by 
Cosimo the Elder to the memory of his parents. An 




Photo. Alinar 



Altar in the Chapel of the Sacrament 

Desiderio da Settignano: San Lorenzo 



The Larger Churches 109 

hour or two spent in this room with the old sacristan 
as cicerone will give one an abiding memory of Flor- 
ence's first great sculptor. 

Out in the bare, cold nave under the tawdry gilt 
ceiling are two stairless pulpits with rich reliefs in 
bronze by Donatello and his pupils; while in the left 
aisle is a beautiful singing gallery, and in the Mar- 
telli chapel (second in the left transept) a cradle 
tomb by the same master. In this chapel, too, is an 
unlovely crucifix by -Cellini and a beautiful Annuncia- 
tion by Filippo Lippi. 

On the altar at the end of the right transept is an 
exquisite marble shrine by Desiderio da Settignano, 
almost concealed by the altar fittings; but by scram- 
bling up behind the altar and squeezing in between 
its back and the shrine one can see something of this 
delicate and wholly charming piece of decorative 
sculpture. 

In August, 1530, the citizens of Florence gave up 
their unequal struggle against the intrenched foe 
without and the compromising plotting commander 
within the walls. Malatesta became master of Flor- 
ence and submitted the practical subjection of the 
city to the Imperial-Papal army. The conditions of 
the subjection were three, of which one was the return 
of the Medici to power. There was no further need 
of Michelangelo's genius at the San Miniato fortifi- 
cations; but the incoming Medici had need of it for 
another and very different undertaking. So freedom 
and security and commissions were offered the artist 
if he would come forward. Thereupon he left his 
hiding-place in the bell-tower of San Niccolo by the 



no The Larger Churches 

Miniato gate, and quietly and immediately began 
his labors of genius in the New Sacristy of San 
Lorenzo. 

The two statues of the Medici dukes, Lorenzo and 
Gluliano, and the four extraordinary symbols of time, 
the famous Morning, Evening, Day, and Night, 
were actually, so vehemently did the artist work, 
sufficiently advanced by the end of the year to be 
placed in niches in the walls of the building sacristy. 
And in another year, that is by September, 155 1, 
Michelangelo had nearly killed himself with over- 
work and exposure in the cold, damp underground 
room. He was an old man of nearly sixty years, 
working feverishly and utterly regardless of strength 
and health at his masterpiece. And doing it under 
tremendous disadvantages, both material and of 
spirit. 

" If San Marco is the blessed retreat where a happy 
man detached from the dolorous cares of earth has 
satisfied himself with giving a visible form to the 
celestial glory which ravished him, San Lorenzo is 
the goal where a great suffering soul has constrained 
marble to express the storm of his rancor and disgust. 
If Florence had only San Marco and San Lorenzo, 
this convent and this church, where is preserved that 
which human art has produced of the most elevated in 
the two opposite poles of the spirit, would suffice for 
Its glory " (Hopltal). 

The sacristy as It now stands with its contained 
sculptures, is In almost all respects Michelangelo's 
personal work. His, too, is the beautiful Laurenzian 
library which overlooks the church cloisters. This 




Photo. Brogi 



Tomb Monument of Lorenzo de' Medici 

Michelangelo: San Lorenzo 



The Larger Churches 1 1 1 

library, founded by Coslmo Medici and protected and 
enriched by the later members of the family, is an 
extremely valuable collection of rare codices housed 
in beautiful rooms. The Intricate pattern of the 
rich red and white inlaid pavement Is repeated in the 
carved ceiling, and the stained-glass windows are un- 
usually lovely. Among the special treasures in the 
collection, which includes altogether more than 10,000 
MSS., are the Pandects of Justinian taken by the 
Pisans from Amalfi in 1 135 and seized by the Floren- 
tines when they took. Pisa In 1406. Petrarch's Horace 
and Cicero are here, too, and the BIblia Amiatina 
" brought from the monastery of Amiata and written 
by Ceolfridus, a monk of the English Wearmouth 
(690-716), and taken by him to Rome as an offering 
at the sepulcher of St. Peter." 

But both sacristy and library were being built by 
Michelangelo for unloved masters. He had long 
been opposed to the Medici, at least as rulers or 
claimants for the rule of Florence. Indeed, his antl- 
Medlcean activity would have certainly forfeited his 
life had he been a man of less fame and worth to the 
world. It is not surprising to learn, then, that on 
the death, in September, 1534, of Pope Clement, his 
powerful protector, and because of his consequent 
unshielded exposure to the open dislike of Duke 
Alessandro, Michelangelo should have immedi- 
ately dropped all his work on the sacristy and library 
and left Florence for Rome. Nor did he return again 
until that March, thirty years later, when his dead 
body was taken secretly out of Rome by his friends 
and brought to Florence to lie in unofficial state in 



112 The Larger Churches 

Santa Croce until the whole city had passed in sorrow 
before it. 

Thus like so curiously much of Michelangelo's 
work San Lorenzo's sacristy and its famous figures 
stand unfinished. But incomplete as they are, they 
stand, nevertheless, the chief pride of a city overfull 
of things to warrant pride. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GALLERIES 

THE UFFIZI 

AS one climbs the toilsome stairway of the Uffizi, 
. he has time to take mental note of his errand. 
He is about to enter one of the largest and best 
galleries of paintings in the world — and for what 
purpose? To see the pictures, certainly. But why 
see them? Is he an actual draughtsman or colorist 
eager to learn the technical secrets of the old masters? 
Is he a student of art history, trying to trace the 
growth and development of painting, the interacting 
inspiration of artists, the influence on art of the re- 
ligious and political beliefs and conditions of a given 
period? 

The answer of most of us is that we are neither 
artists nor art critics; not students of the history of 
art; nor even persons of any considerable acquaint- 
anceship with pictures. An honest man, then, enter- 
ing this gallery, will not behave as if he were what he 
confesses he is not. He will treat himself and the 
pictures with simple common sense and truth. He 
will retain, in some measure, his own individuality 
and will try to give himself the joy of personal dis- 

"3 



114 ^^^ Galleries 

covery and response; the happiness of the awaken- 
ing of the germ of art sense and feeling that is sure 
to be within him. 

All of which is not to encourage ourselves to take 
the stand of the perspiring merchant from Sioux City 
that we shall soon see standing before Botticelli's 
little Judith figure that Ruskin has just told him is 
as true as painter can make it to " the mightiest, 
purest, brightest type of high passion in severe 
womanhood offered to our human memory." 

" I don't know anything about pictures," responds 
our friend from the Middle West to Ruskin, " but I 
know what I like, and I don't like this." 

He has said that about music too, when he has 
had to sit through Parsifal at Bayreuth or a 
Bach fugue at the Berlin Philharmonic. He added 
his voice loudly to that overpowering chorus that 
made " Breaking Home Ties " the " greatest pic- 
ture at the Chicago Exposition"; and when Sousa's 
band rose as one man and waved the American flag 
in the "Trip to Coney Island," he said: "There, 
that's something like music." But his wife, who 
never is a Philistine but always a Phil-Ruskin, draws 
in her breath before a one-star picture and lets it out 
again in an ecstatic sigh before a two-star one. She 
revels in ready-made admirations and recommended 
aversions. 

Where, Indeed, shall we stand between not knowing 
about pictures but knowing what we like, and not 
knowing anything at all but taking somebody's shil- 
ling short-cut to knowing everything? 

The presumption is not mine to say. Indeed, one 



The Uffizi 115 

must find oneself; and my own troubles are sufficient 
to me for my days. But honesty and independence 
coupled with due respect to authority that justifies 
itself, recognition of what is unattainable but a 
strong hope and desire to attain what is possible, 
some little information about the times and life of the 
artist, some little also about the subject of the pic- 
ture; these, with our own glad eyes, an open mind, 
and a hungering soul must be an equipment able 
someway to find us a better standpoint than the pride- 
ful honesty of blatant ignorance, or the silly hypocrisy 
that conceals an equal ignorance neither from others 
nor ourselves. 

" All the guide-books I ever read ask the traveler 
to see too much," says Hutton in some book of his. 
This Is going to be the exception; In fact, It will not 
tell of seeing enough, and hence it will not be suffi- 
cient to most as a guide-book. But where, as in the 
Florence galleries, the pictures are all fully labeled — 
except for the signs of some one's approval or dis- 
approval — a catalogue is hardly necessary. And espe- 
cially Is a catalogue for the Uffizi a rather difficult 
thing to compile satisfactorily because of the con- 
stant movement of the pictures, due to RIcci's per- 
sistent efforts to put some informing order Into what 
has long been approximate chaos. 

At the top of the long stair one comes first to four 
rooms which will be for many of much more interest 
than the guide-books reveal in their curt lines. These 
are the rooms in which are hung the portraits of the 
" masters painted by themselves." The faces of men 
who have achieved have a strong fascination. And 



ii6 The Galleries 

when into these faces have been put what the brains 
and souls behind them conceive they should show, this 
fascination becomes doubly gripping. So one lingers 
in these rooms making acquaintance with the men 
whose names one knows, something of whose lives one 
ought to know, and whose works one is just about to 
see. One stands struck by the suggestive juxtaposi- 
tion of the rugged Michelangelo (not a self- 
portrait), his face and hands seamed like the bark of 
an old oak, with the elegant Leonardo da Vinci; the 
glorified street gamin face of Filippino Lippi and 
Raphael's lifted eyes of genius. Here are Titian 
and del Sarto, the Englishmen Watts and Millais, the 
Low Countries Rubens and Van Dyck and Matsys, 
the German Diirer and Holbein. And here are Ma- 
dame Le Brun and Angelica Kauffmann representing 
the mistresses among the masters. 

We go on from the masters to the masterpieces. 
And in the very first room we discover how necessary 
as preparation for satisfactory seeing is one part of 
that equipment which I have just tried to catalogue. 
The paintings in these Florentine galleries — and, for 
that matter, in all the galleries in the world that, like 
them, are devoted to the " old masters " — are the 
work of artists dead long before our time; artists of 
the Renaissance and of the centuries immediately 
following. 

Looking at these pictures is a very different experi- 
ence from viewing a spring salon in Paris or going 
through the rooms of the Luxembourg or other mod- 
ern gallery. The pictures here are not landscapes — 
primarily, at any rate — nor plates of fruit by bronze 



The Uffizi 117 

jars, nor " ladies in gray," nor Monet impressions of 
gardens in blossoms and women in toilette du bal, or 
less. They are for the greater part, one after an- 
other, pictures of faces and stories of the Christ 
family and of the apostles, saints, and martyrs. A 
monotonous repetition, if you like, of conceptions 
of the Madonna and Child, the Saviour on the 
Cross, the Saviour arising, the Saviour enthroned in 
judgment; and an endless retelling of stories from 
the lives of the apostles and saints, stories chiefly 
of naive belief in miracle and wonder, of martyrdom 
and glorification. 

We need to know the stories, therefore, if we are 
to understand the pictures and the attitude and at- 
tempt of the artist. We need to know the attitude of 
the people toward art in the times of the artists; and 
of the absolute dominance of the Church in all things 
connected with art and with the opportunities of the 
artists for work. Otherwise we shall walk half 
blindly through the galleries. We should have read 
some such books as Mrs. Jameson's lives of the saints 
and some accounts of the artists themselves, such as 
Vasari's gossipy tales or Grimm's thoroughgoing 
life of Michelangelo or Kugler's or Crowe and 
Cavalcaselle's massive compilations. 

And even then, finally, these pictures may not make 
an appeal. Most of the art of Florence will not 
speak to persons who like landscapes or pictures of 
sensation. But they will to those who like Man 
better than Nature; who are interested in human 
psychology and sentiment, and especially to them 
who believe, as the old painters believed. 



ii8 The Galleries 

These may wander at will through the corridors 
and rooms of treasure. They may go when tired and 
come again and again for new discoveries, new de- 
lights. And each time they return they will find them- 
selves a little more understanding, a little more criti- 
cally examining, a little more appreciating the master 
thought and touch. It may be in the vaunted 
Tribune that the thrill will be quickest to come, the 
joy keenest to feel. Or it may be in some room of 
fewer stars. Perhaps the rich gleam of the Venetians, 
or the religious fervor of the painting priests of 
Tuscany may appeal most. Or it may be the magic 
lines, the sinuous figures and flowing draperies, the 
cloying sweet faces of holy women and angel children 
in Sandro Botticelli's gold-framed tondi. 

From room to room one wanders with open eyes 
and unbiased mind. The famous name should not be 
too compelling. One is too likely to look carefully 
at an indifferent effort by some well-known artist and 
throw only a vague glance at a marvelous bit by an 
artist of name unfamiliar to the casual sightseer. It 
is a common mistake. Only the student needs to see 
all the works of a master. 

Another trouble is the loss of effect because of the 
unfortunate close crowding of the pictures. In the 
UfSzi any one of a hundred paintings would be the 
pride and sufficient justification of a provincial 
museum or a private gallery; indeed, of almost any 
gallery in America outside of the Metropolitan. This 
Raphael or that Perugino or Titian or Giorglone 
alone would be visited by thousands; one would travel 
far to see it. Here it is one of a hundred equally 




Photo. Brogi 



Virgin and Child 

Filippo Lippi: Uffizi 



The Uffizi 119 

wonderful. The Uffizi, then, as a whole is inconceiv- 
ably valuable, but each picture in it is greatly 
lessened in its appeal by being put with all the others. 

With all this preamble of gratuitous advice and 
lecturing about picture-seeing, there is little space to 
speak of the Uffizi's pictures themselves. But, in- 
deed, that Is just what I have never had any intention 
of doing. Or at least, not beyond the fleeting ex- 
pression of a certain personal satisfaction experienced 
in seeing certain particular things — and what picture- 
seeker is there who can resist that? 

" How I remember," I say with keenest joy, "that 
little jewel of Carpaccio's; that Sogetto Biblico 
that analyzes itself as you look at it from a kaleido- 
scopic play of color and pattern into human faces and 
animation. 

"And in that room," I continue, " — the room of 
the Venetians; the one with Titian's Flora before 
which the guides immediately lead all their docile 
charges — in that room just adjoining the Sogetto 
Biblico is that glorious little triptych by Mantegna, 
with the Ascension in the left wing, the Adoration of 
the Magi in the middle, and the Circumcision in the 
right; a picture that simply glows with color and 
breathes with life." 

"Oh, yes; and in the same room," takes up my 
companion, "are Giorgione's wonderful three; that 
black-bearded Knight of Malta, flanked by the 
Judgment of Solomon and the Child Moses, in 
each of which the human groups are singing chords 
of color, sounding out of the softer harmony of the 
landscape background. And there, too. Is Giovanni 



I20 The Galleries 

Bellini's naive and childishly reverent Sacra Con- 
versazione, with its elaborate landscape and its com- 
plications of tone." 

" Yes, and above all," I interrupt, " that im- 
mensely human St. Anthony and the Virgin of 
Titian with the playing St. John and Christ-Child. 
Baby John holds high a slender cross in his left hand, 
while with his right he hands up flowers to the little 
Christ, who sprawls in the Madonna's lap." 

In the room next the Venetians is a strange, hard, 
crude, but very strong Crucifixion by Andrea del 
Castagno, the peasant painter. It is a fresco done on 
a black background and the figures have all the un- 
couthness and all the strikingness of the painter's 
similar types in his Cenacolo in the convent of Santa 
Apollonia. In the same room also is a large ruined 
fresco by Fra Bartolommeo of the Judgment. 

Adjoining these is the room of tabernacles; a room 
of triptychs and angels. There is a large work here 
by Lorenzo Monaco, a Crowning of the Virgin, 
with bright colors put on in masses, and another 
large triptych of Fra Angelico which was done for 
the Guild of Woolweavers. But the sounding joy 
of this room is Angelico's golden Crowning of the 
Virgin, with its lifted trumpets and beatified faces. 

The Sala di Botticelli includes among its fifteen pic- 
tures of this artist the famous Birth of Venus; the 
Adoration of the Magi, with the artist himself as 
the extreme right-hand figure; the vigorous allegory 
of Calumny with its architectural landscape; and the 
two little pictures, so praised by Ruskin, of the 
Judith and Holofernes story. The Venus picture is 



The Uffizi 121 

the apotheosis of the curved line. Only the tree 
trunks are rectilinear. 

In the Sala di Leonardo on opposite walls are 
Leonardo da Vinci's cartoon of the Adoration of 
the Magi and a battle scene by Paolo Uccello, with 
a kicking horse so ludicrous in Its wrongness that a 
schoolboy would deride it in the drawing of another. 
Of how far a genius for color may be substituted for 
a talent for drawing Uccello's various pictures are a 
fair test. In this room also is an exquisite Annuncia- 
tion by Leonardo da Vinci. The blue-robed Virgin 
is sitting behind a reading desk and low carved 
table. In front of the table, kneeling in the flower- 
strewn grass, is the Angel, with flowing red draperies 
and right arm half outstretched. In the background 
are symmetrical trees and a distant cliffy mountain. 
It is a picture that balances and sings like a lyric 
poem. Here also is Fra Filippo Lippi's much-visited 
Madonna of the filmy headdress, with the Babe being 
held up to her by two angel children. 

In the httle Sala di Michelangelo is the artist's 
Holy Family, with its curious introduction of a 
number of irrelevant nude figures, making a picture 
over into the painter's equivalent of an etude for 
the piano. The figures of the Holy Family itself are 
far from sanctified in seeming. The picture is, how- 
ever, of great interest to any student of Michelangelo, 
for it is one of his very few easel paintings. 

In a new small room off one of the halls of the 
Tuscan school are two charming pictures of Melozzo 
da Forli, the sundered Angel and Virgin of an An- 
nunciation. The Virgin has dark-green outer drap- 



122 The Galleries 

ery with dark red-purple underneath and a black 
mantilla over her head. The Angel is serious but 
animated, advancing swiftly with skirt and girdle 
flying and hand uplifted. 

The Tribuna, focus of all the Uffizi's wonders, 
contains five masterpieces of sculpture and two score 
*' pictures selected as capi d' opera and arranged with- 
out reference to schools or dates." It is a startling 
example of the incalculable harm that can be done by 
this mode of lack of arrangement and crowding. It 
is the method of sensation; and it misses even this 
aim, which would be no virtue if attained. Raphael's 
Madonna of the Cardellino, St. John in the 
Wilderness, and replica Portrait of Pope Julius 
II hang here. Titian's two Venuses, one with the 
Cupid, the other with the little dog, and his portrait 
of Beccadelli; two of Correggio's best works; an 
Adoration of the Magi by Diirer; two portraits 
by Van Dyck; pictures by Rubens, Veronese, Francia, 
Luini, Kranach, Gucrcino, Luca van Leyden, Fra 
Bartolommeo, Spagnoletto, Perugino, and still others 
with names familiar are here. It is a collection of 
most enjoyable riches with any one thing in it very 
hard to enjoy. 

The sculpture of the Uffizi, considerable in quan- 
tity, seems to be, with the exception of a few pieces, 
rather undistinguished. The famous five antiques of 
the Tribuna and the Niobe group in the Sala di 
Niobe are the better known prizes. The Niobe room 
is one of the most satisfactory in the whole gallery. 
It is restful and impressive in its singleness of use. 
The statues, originally a single group found near 



The Uffizi 123 

Rome, are now placed separately about the room. 
The figure of NIobe herself, clasping her youngest 
child, presents an extraordinary expression of inten- 
sity and nobility of grief. 

The Tribuna five are the Venus of Medici, the 
kneeling Scythian slave whetting his knife to flay 
Marsyas, the group of Wrestlers, young Apollo, and 
the Dorian Satyr. Of these it is to the Venus of 
Medici that one turns with most interest. But beau- 
tiful Roman as she is, she falls far short of her 
Grecian sister of the Louvre. In this comparison she 
is, to be sure, badly handicapped by her difference in 
setting. The Venus of Melos has her own boudoir. 
She is seen from far down the corridor of open rooms 
projected in perfect outline against the relieving back- 
ground. It is the same advantage that the Germans 
have given the Sistine Madonna, in her own quiet 
room, over Raphael's other Madonnas, the Gran 
Duca, della Sedia, and the Cardellino, here in the 
Florentine galleries. 

Strolling the length of the corridors one may pause 
a moment in front of Bandinelli's self-vaunted copy 
of the Laocoon, to muse on the harm a little 
man can do a great one, with opportunity. Bandi- 
nelli harried and heckled Michelangelo for a score of 
years, and by sheer self-conceit and persistence man- 
aged to push himself into a position of apparent 
rivalry with him. His chief triumph came when he 
got his Hercules and Cacus put on the platform 
of the Palazzo Vecchio, opposite Michelangelo's 
David (now removed to the Accademia). Over 
Bandinelli's tomb in Santa Annunziata is a Pieta by 



124 The Galleries 

his own hand, which, in his extraordinary conceit, 
the sculptor thought to rival Michelangelo's master- 
piece in Rome. Of Bandlnelli's effort Michelangelo 
is said to have remarked : 

" I have only pity for that ' Pieta ' ! " 
The three rooms of sketches by the masters seem 
little lingered in, but there is much of Interest in 
them. Especially in the last one of the three (called 
" Sala Prima ") is one held fascinated by this inti- 
mate meeting with the masters in their undress uni- 
form. Sketches, finished drawings, architectural de- 
sign, bits of human anatomy, tentative groupings, 
and compositions in the swift free lines and scratches 
of pen or pencil of a half-hundred men whose 
pictures fill the Florentine galleries. Raphael's 
sketches for the Gran Duca and Cardellino Ma- 
donnas, Titian, Glorgione with his fancy for musi- 
cians showing In his sketches of players of various 
instruments, Carpaccio, PInturrichIo, Perugino, Va- 
sari, Cellini (designs for silver or gold work), 
Baccio Bandlnelli's drawings for his Hercules and 
Cacus, are all In the first two rooms (Sale II and 
III). 

In the Sala Prima are the Tuscan and Florentine 
painters. Here are sketches and designs by Dona- 
tello, Masolino, Fra Bartolommeo, Andrea del Sarto, 
of these latter two an especially large showing; Fra 
Angellco, Ghiberti, Andrea del Castagno, Fillppo 
LIppI, and Flllppino his son, Domenico Ghirlandajo, 
Botticelli, Verrochio, Luca SIgnorelli, Piero di 
Cosimo, Antonio and Piero del Pollaluolo, Benozzo 
Gozzoll, Mario Albertlnelli, Lorenzo di Credl, Paolo 




H P 



The Uffizi 125 

Uccello, and Michelangelo. Of this last, most inter- 
esting is the first drawing (No. 608) for the never 
completed mausoleum of Pope Julius II, begun in 
the Pope's lifetime and worked at intermittently and 
to the great worry of mind of the artist and the con- 
stant interference with his other projects, for over 
twenty years. For this mausoleum the celebrated 
Moses and the Bound Captives were made. 

To reach the rooms of drawings and designs one 
has had to pass along hundreds of feet of corridors. 
Lined by old paintings, sculptures, and drawings, 
this league of corridor contains an important part 
of the Uffizi collections. But it has an added interest 
and charm in its timbered and decorated ceiling, 
which is covered with an amazing variety of ara- 
besques painted in the sixteenth century. Although 
rather tiring it is fascinating work, to pick out the 
details and scheme of decoration in this exhaustless 
ceiling gallery. 

Finally, there is a curious part of the Uffizi — if it 
should be reckoned with this gallery rather than with 
the Pitti — which to some people proves of unusual 
fascination. It is Vasari's long angled passage which 
leads from the west corridor across the Ponte Vecchio 
and thence to the Pitti Palace. This long overhead 
tunnel was built by the Medici to connect the Palazzo 
Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti as a means of safety 
in case of a popular uprising. Now it is a con- 
venient short-cut from one picture gallery to another, 
offering at the same time a wealth of curious interest 
on its walls. Here are hung the portraits of half a 
thousand worthy and unworthy citizens of Medicean 



126 The Galleries 

Florence, chief among whom are the many Medici 
themselves. It is at once the Rogues' Gallery and the 
Hall of Fame of Renaissance Florence. From these 
faces look out the history and humanity of a wonder- 
ful epoch of the world's life. 



CHAPTER X 

THE GALLERIES (continued) 

THE PITTI AND ACCADEMIA 

AT the end of the long passage from the Uffizi, 
which runs over a famous bridge across a 
famous river, is the Pitti : a gallery of perfect satis- 
faction or as nearly that, probably, as one can come 
to among all the collections of Europe. By no means 
the largest; indeed, that is one of the joys of it. 
The Louvre, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, the 
Uffizi just across the river, these and others are the 
large galleries. The Accademia in Venice, the 
Brera in Milan, the Hague, and the other small 
ones, but far and away first among them the Pitti, 
are the galleries one comes really to know and to 
love. 

Although the passage from the Uffizi leads di- 
rectly to the Pitti, this is not the way to come to it, 
if the traverse of the passage means that the larger 
gallery has first been visited. One should enter it 
fresh and unfatigued. The very introduction, 
Giorglone's marvelous Concert, which faces one 
from across the room as he steps over the threshold 
of the first hall, the Saloon of the Iliad, is fair sign 

127 



128 The Galleries 

and measure of the unique richness, the glory of 
color, and wealth of genius in this gallery. From 
this room on through the saloons of Saturn, Jupiter, 
Mars, Apollo, Venus, and the rest one wanders wide- 
eyed and breathless, reluctant to leave one hall, eager 
to enter the next. 

To each his own choice. For myself, in the first 
room, the Sala d'lliade, I linger longest and with 
most delight before the Concert, which is music 
veritably humanized. The dispute over the attribu- 
tion of this picture need not detract from its interest: 
it cannot from its charm. Near it in this room is 
Sustermann's fascinating boy Prince of Denmark; and 
on opposite walls are two large pictures of The 
Assumption by Andrea del Sarto. These latter 
have an interest apart from their beauty in the oppor- 
tunity they give to note the artist's resources in 
connection with a single subject. 

The Hall of Saturn is the Hall of Raphael. There 
are eight of his pictures here, four of such char- 
acter and so hung as to make a curiously balanced 
quartette. These are the two men in red, Inghirami 
and Bibbiena, and the two Madonnas of world 
fame, the Gran Duca and della Sedia. Here is 
Raphael at his smoothest and sweetest. He is 
here the courtier and the artist genius turn by turn, 
and both at once. It is interesting to look from 
Raphael to Perugino his master, as shown in a single 
famous picture in this room, the Deposition from 
St. Chiara. Sweet and smooth are truly the words 
for both master and master-surpassing pupil. 

In the adjoining room, the Hall of Jupiter, is 




Photo. Brogi 



The Granduca Madonna 

Raphael: Pitti 



The Pitti and Accademia 129 

Raphael's La Velata, with its face of the Sistine 
Madonna secularized. Opposite it is Titian's violet- 
sleeved Fornarina; beauty against beauty. Here 
also is a picture by an unknown artist — or rather, an 
undetermined artist, but one forever famous by this 
picture alone — the so-called Three Ages of Man. 
The face of the old man is a face of affairs; that 
of the middle-aged man a Christ-face; and that of 
the boy a painter or poet in his beginning. Another 
picture here of three faces, or really a triple repeti- 
tion of a single face, is The Fates, painted by Rosso 
Fiorentino after an alleged design of Michelangelo's. 
In the Hall of Prometheus just off this room is 
Filippo Lippi's delightful tondo of the Madonna 
and Child, with the Nativity of Mary in the back- 
ground. 

In the Sala di Marte are two unforgettable por- 
traits by Rembrandt. One is the world-familiar one 
of himself as a young man, with low forehead and 
almost gamin face. The other is that of a fine old 
man, experienced, wise, quiet, but with a strong life 
still burning behind the face. Here, too, is Titian's 
Ritratto Virile, called, for want of any other name, 
the Young Englishman. Perhaps no other picture 
in the Pitti gives one so much food for fancy as does 
this inscrutable face. Here also is another of those 
great wall-covering canvases of Andrea del Sarto, of 
which the Pitti is full. This is a Holy Family 
painted for one of the Medici. 

As one enters the next room, the Hall of Apollo, 
a striking picture of red and black across the room 
catches the eye and holds it. It is Raphael's uncom- 



130 The Galleries 

promising portrait of the first Medici Pope, Leo X, 
with his two nephew cardinals looking over his 
shoulders. It is a picture that tells how much a Pope 
was a prince of state in those days, and how little a 
vicar of church; a man of force and self-will and 
pleasure, but no saint for you and me. In this room 
also is Titian's luxuriant Mary Magdalen, and, skied 
above it, Sustermann's charming baby Cosimo III. 
Raphael's little Vision of Ezekiel is also here, and 
a Madonna and Child by Murillo that satisfies more 
than some others of this variously criticised Spaniard. 

In the adjoining Hall of Venus is Raphael's 
Pope Julius II, a genius's conception of this patron 
of the arts, warrior of the field, and undaunted 
fighter of countless enemies and obstacles. A splendid 
old man whose very worldliness and ambition made 
him a better Pope for his day. 

There are other rooms, although in these first half- 
dozen most of the glory of the Pitti is gathered. But 
everywhere there is color and delight. The very walls 
and ceilings, rich and splendid in their decoration, 
the beautiful great golden frames set on hinges to 
make them follow the light, the scattered superb vases 
and cabinets and tables all add to the Pitti's distinc- 
tion. And distinction may well be the fitting closing 
word for this gallery. 

If we come to the Accademia last it is, perhaps, 
only because of the retrospect it can give of the 
whole history of Florentine, and, partly, Umbrian, 
painting. The Accademia delle Belli Arti is more 
truly a museum, a teaching collection, than either 




Plioto. Brogi 



Pope Leo X and Cardinals Giulio de' Medici 
AND LuiGi de' Rossi 

Raphael: Pitti 



The Pitti and Accademia 131 

the Pitti or the Uffizi; although this latter, by its 
steady rearranging, is coming more and more to be 
informing to the tourist who must read as he runs. 
Perhaps, indeed, it would be better if one, for the 
sake of this opportunity for orientation in Tuscan 
art, this opportunity to follow the course of the 
birth, development, and decadence of Tuscan paint- 
ing, would come to the Accademia first. However, 
this is a matter of personal liking. 

On entering, one strolls lingeringly by the attract- 
ive naivete of the fine Flemish tapestries that clothe 
the walls of the broad vestibule. How delightful the 
animals in Eden passing in review before Adam; 
the unicorn proudly leading the large quadrupeds, the 
over-fat and toothsome mice right in front of the 
very jaws of the paradisaic cats, and the fowls of the 
air in a great flying stream led by ostriches and other 
like birds believed by the foolish naturalists to be 
incapable of flight ! One leaves them with reluc- 
tance. But once left all one's attention is immediately 
given to that David of wonder and of extraordinary 
history, of limitless description and praise. What- 
ever the little contentions about details, the size of 
head, hands, and feet, for example, the whole 
the world has long given Michelangelo nothing but 
praise for this his first great attempt. 

The story of the undertaking is of interest. First 
the puzzle of the single great block of Carrara marble 
and the reluctance of all the sculptors to undertake its 
subject. Then Michelangelo's decision and permis- 
sion to make the attempt, and his two years and more 
of nearly continuous labor before the completion of 



132 The Galleries 

the statue. Finally, the famous council of artists 
and architects called to determine where it should be 
placed; the long debates, the decision to put it next 
the gate of the palace of the Signoria (the Palazzo 
Vecchio) to replace the smaller David of Donatello 
(now in the Bargello). But deciding to put the 
statue in place by no means put it there. So II Cro- 
naca, the Garrulous, devised a great scaffolding for 
lifting and transporting the 18,000-pound monster. 
For three exciting days it moved slowly through the 
streets with its guards, attacked each night by evil 
wishers. But at dawn of May 18, 1504, it arrived 
safely and was put in place. 

" The erection of the ' David,' " says Grimm in his 
"Life of Michelangelo," " was like an occurrence of 
Nature from which people are wont to reckon. We 
find events dated so many years after the erection 
of the giant. It was mentioned in records in which 
there was not a line besides respecting art." 

For three and a half centuries David stood at the 
portal of the palace of the people. A curiously long 
deferred anxiety about the danger to the statue from 
the elements led, in 1873, to its removal to its present 
roofed-in quarters. Up on Monte San Miniato, near 
the scenes of Michelangelo's herculean labors of 
fortification in that sad time of Florence's struggle 
with a besieging Emperor and Pope, stands a bronze 
copy of the statue. And from most of the city the 
bared youthful head can be seen outlined against the 
sky when one looks across the river toward San 
Miniato. 

Around David in the Accademia are grouped 




riioto. Brogi 



The Adoration 

D. Ghirlandajo: Accademia 



The Pitti and Accademia 133 

several casts of Michelangelo's other works, together 
with some of his drawings and an admirable series 
of photographs of his Sistine frescoes. 

To attend to the pictures of the Accademia and 
their teaching one may advisably first enter the room 
at that end of the corridor which contains the cast 
of Michelangelo's Roman Pieta (a cast presented 
by the city of Rome to the city of Florence). Here 
begins a series which, starting with Cimabue in the 
thirteenth century — there are even two or three truly 
Byzantine pieces as forerunners of Cimabue — goes on 
through the glory of the fourteenth and fifteenth and 
early sixteenth centuries, into the fading of the later 
sixteenth and the decadence of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. The latter pictures are gathered 
fittingly into a dark room (VIII) and make of it 
almost a chamber of horrors. Not the least of these 
horrors is Carlo Dolci's sickening Christ head. On 
an easel in this room, but put here for the light and 
not at all as belonging in time or quality to the rest 
of the collection, is a Madonna by Masaccio, 
reserved, strong, and quietly dignified. 

The easel pictures in the first room of the series 
are an Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da 
Fabbriano and an Adoration of the Shepherds by 
Domenico Ghirlandajo. They are both intense in 
color and life, crowded with figures and elaborate 
in background. They attract much attention, as 
they deserve, but they really keep the sightseer un- 
fairly long away from the valuable, and from the his- 
torical point of view more important. Madonna 
of Cimabue and the Giotto pictures on the left wall. 



134 The Galleries 

The Giotto paintings are a series of panels illustrating 
his favorite subject, the life of St. Francis. 

The next room (VII) contains Fra Bartolommeo's 
fresco portrait sketches taken from the walls of San 
INIarco and elsewhere and set up here as framed pic- 
tures. Most interesting of these is certainly that one 
of Savonarola in the guise of St. Peter Martyr. 
Two pictures of Albertinelli, an artist of name less 
familiar than deserved, are here, an Annunciation 
and a Madonna and Child. In this room also is 
(usually) on an easel the wonderful Deposition 
from the Cross, of that other painting priest of 
San Marco, Fra AngeHco, or Fra Giovanni da Fie- 
sole, as the Fiesoleans still call him. How his blue 
Italian sky of summer glorifies the whole picture. 

Returning to the room nearer the David, 
namely, the Sala di Perugino and the two Sale di 
Botticelli, we find a concentration of masterpieces 
of the Tuscan and Umbrian masters. Here is Fra 
Filippo Lippi's very beautiful Coronation of the 
Virgin, with the artist himself in the picture. He 
is on the right, with hands clasped and looking in- 
tently at his nun of human feelings. Here also are 
two cherubim of Andrea del Sarto, " spirits of 
just babies made perfect " to quote an apt friend. 
And the wonderful portraits by Perugino of two Val- 
lombrosan monks. There is an Assumption by 
this master of Raphael painted for the monastery at 
Vallombrosa and containing a figure of San Giovanni 
Gualberto, the picturesque founder of the forest 
monastery. And Luca Signorelli's strong and real- 
istic but most reverent Crucifixion. Also Lorenzo 



The Pitti and Accademia 135 

dl Credi's Adoration of the Shepherds and Holy 
Family and Angels. And, finally, here is the group 
of paintings by the master whose work has made the 
Accademia famous and whose name, Sandro Botti- 
celli, is that most often mentioned among the paint- 
ers whose patrons were the Medici. 

The moonlight sonata of this artist, the Reign 
of Venus, or more familiarly the Primavera, is 
the most beset picture in the gallery. It seems to be 
fading a little, but perhaps it is only the waning of 
the moon over this fantastically beautiful group of 
dream figures. Are these forms wholly human? 
Especially that wild leaping thing of the woods with 
the leafy spray in her mouth? Have not Bocklin's 
h ilf-human, half-animal creatures of the Urwald a 
prototype in this Chloris of the dream painter of the 
Renaissance? 

The Primavera is flanked by two of Filippo 
Lippi's most delicate and exquisitely beautiful pic- 
tures, a Nativity and an Adoration. 

Another picture of Botticelli's that attracts unusual 
attention is the Angels with Tobias. The youthful 
Tobias carries his fish in one hand while with the 
other he clasps lightly the hand of one of the angels. 
They are all moving vigorously along over a rough 
ground with draperies flying and one foot of each 
a-tiptoe. 

In the Sala del Angelico is a collection of bits by 
Fra Angelico taken from San Domenico di Fiesole. 
These little pictures lose much by being plucked out 
of their churchly and monastic setting and crowded 
together in a single small room, but the delicacy of 



136 The Galleries 

drawing and color and the earnest religious feeling 
of the painter triumph over all this misfortune. The 
group of sightseers concentrates ever about the Last 
Judgment. This picture is larger than most of the 
others and next to the David and the Primavera is 
the best known object of pilgrimage in the Acca- 
demia. The hand-in-hand circle of happy elect in 
the lower left-hand corner of the picture leaves a 
memory of pure bliss. The other side of the picture, 
with its rather ludicrous damned, is so much less 
successful that one inevitably asks the reason for 
such a disparity of conception and work revealed in 
a single picture. Is it that Fra Angelico was always 
so lost in ecstatic visions of heaven, and so pene- 
trated by the belief in an all-pitying and all-loving 
Saviour, that he was simply unable to conceive of 
hell? 

The two succeeding rooms of pictures by early 
Florentine painters of questionable distinction have 
not much in them to arrest us. 

If one is curious to see just how far the decadence 
in Italian art, beginning in the seventeenth century, 
has reached in the twentieth, he should spend a few 
moments upstairs in the rooms of modern paintings. 
Hare mentions Morgan's Death of Raphael and 
Ussi's Banishment of the Duke of Athens as the 
two most notable pictures in this collection. But 
some will care more for Eugenio Cecconi's vigorous 
hunt of the wild boar, with its full breath of out-of- 
doors and its tensely halted animals. 

In the first room of the series leading to the right 
there is an interesting group of five small paintings 



The Pitti and Accademia 137 

by Giovanni Signorini of carnival, race, festa, and 
fireworks in Florence on the piazzas of Santa Maria 
Novella and Santa Croce and on the bridge of Santa 
Trinita, In the last room of this series there is a pic- 
ture painted by Enrico Farfani from the Loggia dei 
Lanzi, showing part of the piazza in the revolution 
of 1859. In the glimpse of the front of the Palazzo 
Vecchio in this picture one sees the David in its 
original place. 

Finally, in any even .most incomplete account 
of the pictures in Florence, reference must not be 
omitted to two remarkable works of Botticelli, the 
Pallas and the Madonna with the Roses stranded 
in one of the royal bed-chambers or ante-rooms 
in the Pitti Palace. Why these pictures cannot 
be got out from their hiding-place and put into 
the Pitti gallery, or one of the others, is hard to 
understand. As it is, one has to traverse and be 
shown an interminable series of royal bedrooms and 
the like in green and blue and red and yellow, all 
suggestive and proper enough of royalty but wholly 
unnecessary to the seeing of the pictures. There are, 
indeed, pleasant rumors afloat that Ricci would like 
not only to rescue these marooned masterpieces of 
Botticelli but also to remove and rearrange in their 
proper places in the great UflUzi pageant the pictures 
now hanging in the dark and dangerously damp and 
mouldy rooms of the Accademia. That would truly 
be a breath-taking room in the Uffizi in which the 
Birth of Venus and the Reign of Venus should 
be hanging on opposite walls as they were originally 
painted to be. 



CHAPTER XI 

CASTLES AND PALACES 

PALAZZO VECCHIO AND IL BARGELLO 

FROM the days when we first read Walter Scott 
and looked at the geography book pictures of 
the castle-lined Rhine, most of us have had a clear 
mental image of a proper castle. And from the 
days when we first knew from story and illustration 
the jeweled front of the Doge's Palace by its magic 
waters, and the limitless length of Versailles in its 
garden of fountains, we have been pretty confident 
of the seeming of a palace. 

Well, the castles and palaces of Florence are dif- 
ferent. The castles are on no lonely hilltop. They 
front on crowded streets and are jostled by shops 
and restaurants. And the fagades of the palaces are 
simple great wall surfaces, unadorned except by 
huge iron torch-sockets or corner lanterns and worn 
family stemmi carved in the rough stone. These 
palaces seem to be just great cubes of stone set four- 
square to the streets and humble houses of the city. 
Seventy-six of them are catalogued in a recent book 
devoted to their description and history — there are 
really many more than this book lists — and they all 
seem as much alike as so many peas. But they are 

138 



Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 139 

no more alike; for peas, after all, always truly differ 
from each other, although keeping closely to the 
recognized pea plan of architecture. 

If one climbs the four hundred stairsteps of the 
Palazzo Vecchio tower, and looks down on the Flo- 
rentine palaces he will discover a hole In the top of 
each of these solid seeming cubes, a hole which goes 
clear down to the ground and Is really a small court 
which usually has a lot of green things at Its bottom. 
And If one descends and rings up the custode of one 
of the cubes when its Inhabitants are at Viareggio or 
In the PIstojese mountains for the hot season, he can 
readily get acquainted with the general, simple, prac- 
tical plan of the Florentine palace. 

There are exceptions, of course, to the general type; 
most conspicuously the PItti palace, the greatest of 
them all and one of the noblest, most splendid, and 
truly regal palaces in Europe. It is long and winged. 
But most of the others keep to the compact cube, a 
plan due less to the fancy of the Florentine merchant- 
prince nobility than to the urgency of those lively 
days of Palleski, Arrabbiati, and Plagnone mutual 
house-to-house visitations under arms. 

As to the castles of Florence, there are only two 
that I am going to write of, and as neither of them is 
really called castle, it is obviously foolish to make cas- 
tle generalizations in their connection. However, 
each has donjons and battlements and a huge tower, 
and so Is really something like our early picturing. 

The first and much the larger of these two Is the 
Palazzo Vecchio, towering hugely and really most 
grimly castle-like up from the busy Piazza della 



140 



Castles and Palaces 



Signoria. " Rude are its walls, severe its crenela- 
tions where hung the Pazzi and toward which 
mounted the smoke of the funeral pyre of Savonarola." 
Castle and piazza form together the focus of most 
Florentine history and fiction. They are still the 
center to which the converging threads of present-day 

Florentine life run. 
In and near the 
piazza men strike 
hands over the mar- 
ket-day transactions. 
Here the straggling 
lines of tourist cara- 
vans under their 
marshaling leaders 
are beset and har- 
ried by a cloud of 
flanking parasites. 
And here come the 
shining carriages of 
the Florentine wed- 
ding couples bound 
for the tapestried, 
red-hung sala di 

"Michelozzo's beautiful little court ^^^^trlmouio where 
with its winsome laughing boy of the civil ceremony 

Verrocchio spurting water over his necessary tO all 

dolphin playmate." j^^jj^^ marryings, 

and sufficing for some, is enacted. 

Entering the great building by its portal between 
Bandinelli's graceless Baucis and Philemon, and under 
its " fierce tower, standing like a giant sentinel on 




Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 141 

his rounds," one comes immediately into Michelozzo's 
beautiful little court (1434) with its winsome laugh- 
ing boy of Verrocchio spurting water over his dol- 
phin playmate. So joyful the splashing fountain, so 
beautiful and quiet the court, one gets at first none of 
that sense of great things done here in momentous 
times of storm and stress, in those epoch-making 
hours throbbed through by hearts of men whose 
memories still live to glorify or execrate human 
strength and passion. 

It is hard at first to re-create the tumult and shout 
of mobs, the solemn meetings of councils, the clamor 
of soldiers, and pomp of warrior princes. It is hard 
to catch the whispers from stealthy conferences of 
intrigue and plotting. But the farther one penetrates 
into this abode of history, the more murmurous be- 
come its walls with the echoes of those full days, and 
the more the shadows moving ghostly through the 
corridors and halls begin to take recognizable forms 
of gonfalonier and councilor, of prince and papal 
legate, of jailer and tortured prisoner of state. In 
the great hall of the consigUo grande sit the shades 
of the nobles and citizens of Florence; on the floor 
lies during his last night of life the vision-seeing 
martyr priest of San Marco; on the walls, under 
the commonplace frescoes of the profuse and facile 
Vasari one dimly divines the lost cartoons of 
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. What a 
Mecca of art this room would be had those pictures 
ever been consummated and preserved ! There is no 
longer any lack of the thrills and the awe and rever- 
ence that should come to us from the spaces of this 



142 Castles and Palaces 

old castle. The eyes rest lightly on the details of 
Vasari's and Ghirlandajo's painted walls; on Bene- 
detto da Maiano's delicately sculptured marble door- 
way and carven ceiling; on Giambologna's Ivory 
crucifix. They are too full of pictures of past scenes. 

Nowhere else in Florence, not even in the Duomo 
where a Medici was murdered and Savonarola won a 
whole proud city to ways of penitence; nor in the 
cathedral piazza where, when the city seemed about 
to be overwhelmed by a great army, and when 
" every citizen to a man took the oath in the presence 
of the magistrates, that, true to the government, he 
would either conquer or die "; nor in the holy walls 
of San Marco where the falling leader and prophet 
made his last stand against the wolves of a fickle 
populace incited by Pope and thwarted prince: — in 
none of these places gather memories so many or so 
important in the history of the city as in the Palazzo 
Vecchio and the blood-hallowed square in front of it. 

One climbs, silent and thoughtful, up the long 
turning stairway of the tower. Far up, just under 
the machicolated battlements, a little door Is pushed 
open and a tiny cavity in the great stone wall is shown; 
a mere rat-hole with a narrow stone seat in it. It has 
a single crack-like outer opening and the door Is per- 
forated by a small cross-barred aperture. Here 
Savonarola shall have spent that time of his forty 
days' imprisonment,, when he was not In the hands 
of his torturers. The myth speaks well for the per- 
sisting picturesqueness of Italian fancy, for this rat- 
hole more than fulfils all of a New World tourist's 
demands for an Old World donjon cell. Besides its 



Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 143 

impossible limitations of space for Savonarola's long 
confinement, its fitness Is enhanced by the fact that the 
narrow vertical outer peep-hole gives sight of the great 
church of Santa Croce, headquarters of the Franciscan 
enemies of the Dominican priest. However, the 
larger prison room a few steps higher, In which 
Cosimo I was imprisoned. Is much more likely to have 
been also the cell of the Medici-fighting monk. 

From the top of the tower Florence and Its sur- 
roundings reveal themselves in bird's-eye view. The 
larger buildings stand out In their proportions; the 
lesser ones disappear in a lower continuous red-roofed 
mass. The Arno winds away seaward, glittering in 
its broad valley; hill-sides and plain show themselves 
one continuous plantation of olive and vine; the 
mountains that stand about Florence everywhere In 
the distance lift themselves in heavy lines above the 
nearby villa-dotted hills. Straight down three hun- 
dred feet below, curiously foreshortened men and 
cabs and horses trot about in the busy piazza, like 
little black whirligig beetles on the smooth surface 
of a pool. The whirling of these black spots Is 
Florence life of to-day playing across the scene of 
Savonarola's burning. 

As we issue again from MIchelozzo's beautiful 
little colonnaded court we pause on the platform 
where Michelangelo's David stood, and overlook for 
a moment the populous piazza. It is a genre scene 
unpaintable and indescribable In Its lack of emphatic 
points or dominant figures, but unique in Its impres- 
sionistic whole, its aroma. Out of it, to the right, rise 
Ammanati's great fountain, with its giant Neptune 



144 



Castles and Palaces 



and guarding tritons, and Giovanni da Bologna's 
statue of Cosimo I; while, to the left, lifts the noble 
Loggia del Lanzl with Its strenuous statues, Cellini's 
Perseus, Donatello's Judith, and Giovanni da Bo- 




" The noble Loggia dei Lanzi with its strenuous statues." 

logna's Rape of the Sabines and Hercules Slaying 
the Centaur Nessus, — statues befitting the scenes of 
blood and terror that the Loggia looked upon in the 
troublous centuries long past. 

As we stand contemplative and hesitating, suddenly 



Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 145 

the noon gun booms, and promptly on the roar the 
piazza springs into a violent activity. There comes a 
whirling flight of pigeons up from their feeding- 
grounds in front of the cafes and a simultaneous great 
cracking of whips and grinding of wheels as all the 
Signoria omnibuses lurch forward and coveys of 
quick cabs flit off into the side streets. It may be 
our signal as well. 

The Bargello Is the ancient palace and stronghold 
of the podestas and chiefs of police of Florence. In 
Its present peaceful capacity of national museum It 
loses much of Its flavor for those who would like 
to enjoy In It those thrills that the Tower of London 
or the Conclergerle In Paris gives In such full measure. 
But when the giiida aiitorizzata of the Palazzo 
Vecchio leads you solemnly up to a window giving 
a view out over the nearby roofs, and whispers 
heavily, 

" There — there in the dungeons of the Bargello 
they took him to torture him," 

— him being Savonarola, of course, the Bargello 
offers at long distance a very real thrill, indeed. But 
when you once enter it, are really In It, have got 
quickly through its first room of armor and guns and 
sabers, and Into Its court of magic beauty, you lose at 
once, nor desire any more at all, any thrills of the 
morbid. There are In you now and to renew them- 
selves in you for all of your stay here only thrills from 
the beautiful; from the wonderfully beautiful court 
and stair; from the beautiful upper loggia, the 
Verone; the beautiful great halls and high-ceilinged 



146 



Castles and Palaces 



little chapel, and from the varied beauty of the many 
triumphs of art in this castle of joy. 

To catalogue the sources of this joy is far from 




" The Bargello is the ancient palace and stronghold of the 
podestas and chiefs of police of Florence." 

my Intention. There is much to see, and each will 
have his special likes. Some things will almost cer- 
tainly appeal to all. First of all, the marvelous Bar- 




Photo. Brogi 



The Virgin and Child 

Michelangelo: Bargello 



Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 147 

gello court with Agnolo Gaddi's stairs and the great 
arches below and the smaller ones of the Orcagna 
loggia above; the well in the center near which the old 
executions took place, and the towering walls spotted 
thick with the varied and fantastic stemmi of the two 
hundred and more podestas of Florence. One sur- 
renders at once and unquestioningly to the rare 
charm of this famous court. 

A door leading off from it opens into a short cor- 
ridor on which lies the small Michelangelo room con- 
taining several works of his earlier life, the Bacchus, 
the young David, the small Moses, and a charming 
unfinished tondo relief of the Virgin and Child, the 
boy standing with his elbow resting on an open book 
in the mother's lap. In this room, too, are the 
mutilated remains of Benedetto da Rovezzano's mas- 
terpiece, reliefs containing many small figures of ex- 
quisite workmanship. The story of the making and 
destruction of these sculptures is told elsewhere in 
this book. 

Most celebrated of the Bargello rooms is that 
called the Hall of Donatello. It is splendid in itself, 
with its high ceiling, double tier of windows piercing 
the thick walls, and rich air of spaciousness. But 
its contents, a Donatello collection of originals and 
casts, uncrowded and most effectively placed, are its 
real attraction. Here is that San Giorgio taken 
from its niche in the outer wall of Or San Michele, 
and now given the position of honor between the 
youthful Goliath-conquering David on one side and 
the more than ascetic John the Baptist on the other. 
In front of this group are the Young Gentleman 



148 Castles and Palaces 

in bronze and the realistic Uzzano bust in colored 
terra-cotta. A score or more of casts of Donatello's 
reliefs and statues in other cities, especially Padua, 
line the walls of the room, and a cast of his giant 
equestrian statue of Gattamelata (Padua) towers up 
in the center. In front of it squats the Marzocco 
(original) that used to sit on the old Palazzo 
Vecchio platform called the Ringhiera. Altogether 
this hall is an opportunity and a delight to lovers of 
the little Donato. 

In a nearby little room filled with small bronzes 
and reliefs are the two trial reliefs of the scene of 
Abraham and Isaac done by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti 
in competition for the commission to do the bronze 
doors of the Baptistry. The justice of the decision for 
Ghiberti is quickly evident. Brunelleschi makes the 
real scene, the sacrifice interrupted by the angel, only 
a sort of upper story incident while the waiting horse 
and two attendant figures below stand most conspicu- 
ous. Ghiberti with all the same figures in his com- 
position — probably a stipulation of the competition — 
tucks his horse and attendants neatly and undistract- 
ingly away into small compass, leaving Abraham, 
Isaac, and the angel their rightful center of the stage. 

In the adjoining room are Cellini's little wax and 
bronze models (differing slightly) for his Perseus 
in the Loggia dei Lanzi, — he tells of these little 
models, with characteristically entertaining egotism, in 
the last chapter of his " Treatise on Sculpture," — 
and an animated framed relief of Perseus liberating 
Andromeda, with all the characters. There are also 
in this room a whole series of Giovanni da Bologna's 




Photo, Brogi 



NlCCOLO DA UZZANO 
Donatello : Bargello 



Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 149 

bronzes, among them his patched flying Mercury 
with its inimitable air of lightness, a small model of 
his Rape of the Sabines of the Loggia, and two 
charming piitti with fish evidently designed for a 
fountain. Here is also a delightful small bronze head 
of a boy, attributed, but with some growing uncer- 
tainty, to Desiderio da Settignano. 

In the chapel, a small room entered from the 
saloon of tapestries, cloths, ivories, and enamels, with 
its intarsia stalls, is the famous Dante death mask; 
and in the fresco of Paradise above it, the restored 
portrait of Dante holding a flower — (this head has 
been redrawn as a framed picture below hanging at 
the right of the mask). These apparently authentic 
portrayals of Dante's face are of much interest, and 
reveal the inaccuracy of many of the more familiar 
portraits. 

On the floor above are the rooms of the della 
Robbia reliefs. These glazed and colored terra- 
cottas, the secret of whose making was held In the 
della Robbia family and died with It, appeal with 
curious difference of response to different beholders. 
Especially Is this true of the parti-colored examples. 
For the simple blue and white pieces, especially those 
of unelaborate decoration, where the eye Is filled by 
the exquisitely modeled faces of Virgin and Child 
(the favorite subject), there can hardly be anything 
but admiration. But this cannot be so certainly 
claimed for the more richly decorated and brilliantly 
colored pieces. The two rooms containing these 
tondos and plaques give one an exceptional oppor- 
tunity to compare the work of the first members of 



150 Castles and Palaces 

the family, Luca and Andrea, the real masters, with 
the grovvingly inferior ones of the later workers. 

Finally in rooms IV and V of this floor we come 
to chambers hard to escape from, so rich are they in 
reliefs, busts, and statuettes of the masters of Tuscan 
decorativ^e sculpture. Here all the hill-side sculptors 
are represented, Desiderio, the Rossellini, Benedetto 
da Maiano, Mino da Fiesole. And here also are 
characteristic pieces by Verrocchio, Michelozzo, San- 
sovino, Luca della Robbia, Pollaiuolo, Giovanni da 
Bologna, Cellini, Matteo Civitali of Lucca, and, 
shameless to behold, a fragment of decorative relief 
from Jacopa della Quercia's tomb of Ilaria in the 
cathedral at Lucca. Some of the desecration of that 
loveliest of tombs has been repaired by the tardy 
return, through the intervention of the good queen- 
mother of Italy, of the reliefs ravished from the ends 
of the sarcophagus, but Florence still has the hardi- 
hood to retain this purchased fragment. 

It is difficult in such wealth of achievement to at- 
tempt to call attention to any particular pieces, but I 
may mention Verrocchio's speaking relief for the 
tomb of Francesca Tornabuoni and the Ecce Homo, 
and two nearby reliefs of Matteo Civitali, that rare 
sculptor of Lucca whose work is seen so little out- 
side of his native city. Then there is Antonio 
Rossellino's marble tondo of the Adoration with 
its beautifully detailed background, the sheep and 
cow and shed and trees, a complete landscape. 
Also I must mention Benedetto da Maiano's John 
the Baptist, and Jacopo Sansovino's Bacchus, and 
Cellini's Ganymede. 




Photo. Brogi 



Madonna with Child 

Luca della Robbia: Bargello 



Palazzo Vecchio and II Bargello 151 

If one has a fancy for delicately moulded faces 
in low relief, the room of medallions with its veritable 
gallery of Medici portraits in miniature, and its 
scores of other faces of the great days of old, can 
furnish entertainment for long hours. But sight- 













" That most fascinating room of all the Bargello, that un- 
roofed room of the arcades, the well, the stair, and the 
stemmi-spotted walls." 

seeing with a reading glass becomes tiring in time, 
and there is that most fascinating room of all the 
Bargello, always calling; that unroofed room of the 
arcades, the well, the stair, and the stemmi-spotted 
walls. And so one finds oneself again in the court, the 
unsurpassable court; and stays there till closing time. 
Finally, in any chapter under such a title as this 
one has, it must at least be noted that Florence has 
two fortress castles of some importance that are rarely 



152 Castles and Palaces 

visited. These are the Fortezza di San Giorgio on 
the hilltop across the Arno, built in 1590 by the 
Grand Duke Ferdinand; and the Fortezza da Basso, 
at the opposite end of the city, built by the Medici 
Pope, Clement VII, as a stronghold for Alessandro 
de Medici, ruler of Florence. Here the great banker 
Filippo Strozzi, who had actually lent money to the 
Medici to build this fortress, was imprisoned, and 
either put to death or reduced to such hopelessness of 
freedom as to commit suicide. 



CHAPTER XII 

CASTLES AND PALACES (continued) 

THE PALACES 

OF the hundred palaces of Florence, those fa- 
miliar, heavy, fortress-like fourteenth and 
fifteenth century structures, with their massive rough- 
faced or stucco-covered stone walls, their iron lanterns 
and torch-holders, and their carved stemmi over 
portal or at wall-corners, we can mention but half a 
dozen. The interested tourist may engage some more 
leisurely cicerone for introduction to the others. 
Mrs. Ross's " Florentine Palaces " is the most avail- 
able aid, perhaps, although it gives less of architectu- 
ral and descriptive details of the palaces themselves 
than of biographical particulars of the old families 
that builded and inhabited them. It is, indeed, a 
sort of blue book of the first families of quattro and 
cinque cento Florence; a mass of interesting material, 
delved from old chronicles and manuscripts. It 
records the loves and hates, the poisonings and 
poniardings of these picturesque gentlemen and 
ruffians and their fair ladies, of the Florence of the 
Medici, the Strozzi, the Soderini, the Capponi, Pazzi, 
and Pitti. As one reads these scrappy particulars of 

153 



154 Castles and Palaces 

the lives of the old Florentines one wonders no longer 
at the massive stone walls, the few windows, the bat- 
tlements, and towers of their palace dwellings. It 
was certainly well, in those days, to be able 
to bar one's door effectively to any too pressing 
neighbors. 

To-day we are likely, unless more interested in 
Florentine history than Florentine art, to visit first, 
and perhaps only, those palaces in which artistic 
treasures remain or have been specially gathered. 
Most conspicuous in this respect is the regal Pitti, with 
its world-famed galleries. The events, however, in 
the history of this palace have been of much impor- 
tance, outlining in some degree the whole history of 
Florence. 

The palace was begun in 1441 by Luca, of the great 
Pitti banker family, rivals of the Medici, with the 
expressed intention of surpassing the Medici palace 
(Palazzo Riccardi). It was begun by Brunelleschi 
and carried on by Ammanati, and in later times en- 
larged and variously modified under the direction of 
Parlgi, Ruggieri, and others. By the vicissitudes of 
fortune it soon passed from the hands of the Pitti 
into those of their rivals the Medici; and since then 
has been constantly identified with the ruling family 
of Florence whether Italian, French, or Austrian. 

In addition to the paintings and sculptures (al- 
ready referred to in the chapters "The Galleries") 
the PIttI palace contains extensive collections of china 
and of silver- and goldsmlthery, besides the handsome 
furniture and fittings of the royal apartments; for 
the Pitti is the abode of the King of Italy wTienever 



Castles and Palaces 155 

he comes to Florence. The rooms of the royal plate 
and other treasures of gold and silver work are of 
much interest, for they house some of Cellini's most 
magnificent cups and bowls. These are treasures 
which are especially known and loved by the common 
people of the city. When our cook was most excited 
over the preparations for a company dinner she would 
exclaim : 

" Our table must look as beautiful as if we had the 
Cellini bowls and plates on it." 

And although she had never known the use of 
finger-bowls she recognized at once what ours were 
for, crying: 

" Oh, those are little ones like the big ones that 
Cellini made." 

In one of the rooms of the royal apartments are 
two striking paintings by Botticelli, one a Madonna 
with roses and the other the curiously composed 
Pallas, discovered In the palace in 1894 by an 
English artist, and held by many to be one of the most 
rarely beautiful of Botticelli's works. 

Behind and above the five hundred feet of length 
of the PittI palace, are the Boboll Gardens (entered 
through the portal near the entrance to the gallery). 
They are an excellent example of the formal Italian 
style of landscape gardening. There are many long, 
straight, hedge-lined alleys and paths with the vistas 
closed by fountains or statues, and there are stone 
and stucco structures of various sorts and degrees of 
beauty or ugliness. In the latter category the palm 
Is held by the Grotto (near the entrance), which con- 
tains four great unfinished statues reputed to be 



156 



Castles and Palaces 



Michelangelo's beginnings for the Captives which 
were to adorn the never completed tomb of Pope 
Julius II in Rome. These four unfortunates in their 




In the Boboli Gardens. 



Grotto suffer a most atrocious captivity in their 
present setting. The gardens as a whole, however, 
are very beautiful and offer a delightful resting-place 
to the footsore and eye-weary pursuer of " sights." 




Photo. Brogi 



Lorenzo de' Medici as One of the Magi 

Benozzo Gozzoli: Palazzo Riccardi 



Castles and Palaces 



157 



Also he can see, particularly on Sundays, how truly 
these gardens belong to the people. 

That palace of the Medici now known as the 
Palazzo Riccardi and serving as the city's Prefettura, 
is the one that Luca Pitti set out to surpass only 
to have his labors enjoyed, at their end, by his hated 
rivals. Next to the Pitti (and Uffizi) it contains 
the most precious treasures of art housed in any 
Florentine palace; for in it is that wholly lovely and 
joyous little chapel frescoed by Benozzo Gozzoli. 
If this is not the most fascinating and enlivening little 
room in all Europe, as some hold stoutly, it is at 
least no mean second to whatever that more entranc- 
ing room may be. Here is the joy, the color, the life 
of Medicean Florence 
animate on flat walls. It 
assumes to be a holy pic- 
ture as befits the place 
and the art tradition of 
the time; a Procession of 
the Magi; but all that is 
in it of humanity and 
Nature is insistently and 
secularly Florentine. As 

in the frescoes of Ghir- - ^^ 

landajo behind the great 

altar of Santa Maria ^°^°^' Cypresses. 

Novella, the pictured people of Gozzoli and their 
setting are of the painter's personal acquaintance. 
Here are Cosimo and Lorenzo dei Medici, the 
painter's patrons, and here is the joyous artist him- 
self. And the procession winds its pageantry and 




158 Castles and Palaces 

caroling life down the hill-slopes of Fiesole and 
Settignano. The caretaker of the chapel is a man of 
intelligence and enthusiasm, as he should be with 
such a charge in his care. His exploring lantern on 
its long pole and his facile running commentary as he 
slowly moves over all the walls are a part of my 
memory of the little room that I would not lose if I 
could. And how exceptional that is ! 

Besides these chapel pictures there is Luca Gior- 
dano's swiftly painted apotheosis of the Medici in the 
banqueting hall, a hall whose ornate decorative walls 
and ceiling recall the great corridor in Versailles. 
Other rooms and halls have, too, their attractions; 
but of greater interest are the memories clinging to 
these chambers and corridors of the lives of that 
extraordinary family that made this modest palace its 
abode. Here poetry and statecraft, love of beauty 
and of power, philosophic broadness, and personal 
malice lived hand in hand. History was made here 
in days whose nights were revels of trivial pleasure. 
It is a palace whose very stones must have absorbed 
some essence of all this human greatness and frailty 
that they guarded for so long. 

Most striking and most familiar of all of Flor- 
ence's cubical fortress palaces is the great Strozzi 
(corner Via degli Strozzi and Via Tornabuoni). Its 
huge bozzi, its convenient sedilia smoothed by much 
picturesque use, its splendid though incomplete over- 
hanging cornice and its beautiful corner lanterns 
{fanali) of worked iron become very familiar to even 
the most hurried visitor to Florence. He cannot 
help walking or driving by the palace a half-dozen 



Castles and Palaces 



159 



times a day; It is so in the very center of the tourist's 
Florence. He will look out on its massive rough 
walls each time he sips his tea at Giacosa's; and he 
will usually buy his morning paper from one of the 
giornalisti that spread 
their wares on the sedilia 
at its corner. 

The Strozzi, wealthy 
bankers, were for long a 
powerful family, some- 
times friends, sometimes 
rivals of the Medici. 
The decline of the fam- 
ily began with the death 
of the famous Filippo In 
the Medlcean fortress of 
San Giovanni Battista 
(now Fortezza da Bas- 
so). The palace, which 
still belongs to the fam- 
ily, was built in the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies according to the 
designs of Benedetto da 
Maiano and later II Cro- 
naca. Within there is a 
small collection of pictures and marbles by painters 
and sculptors of the first rank. This collection, 
unfortunately, has steadily diminished under the con- 
stant pressure of the enormous building debt, a debt 
that has persisted through five centuries. 

Another palace conspicuous by its great size. Its 




A 



corner lantern of 
Palazzo Strozzi. 



the 



i6o Castles and Palaces 

battlemented walls, and made familiar by Its situation 
and Its present use by the banking house of French, 
Lemon and Company (American Express Co.), is 
that now named Palazzo Ferroni, but better known 
as Palazzo Spini (on the Piazza Santa Trinlta just 
at the bridge). It was built about 1300 by the 
Spini, a family whose head was a wealthy wool mer- 
chant and the leader of the Florentine Guelphs. In 
the middle of the seventeenth century half of the 
palace passed, by purchase, into the hands of the 
Ferroni family, and the other half in 1807. "The 
southern facade rose straight from the bed of the 
Arno, and the street passed under the palace by a 
long archway. Room after room and balcony after 
balcony overhanging the river had been built until 
the height reached sixty braccie and grave fears were 
entertained for the stability of the building. So in 
July, 1823, that side of the Palazzo Spini was taken 
down and the fagade thrown back to admit of the con- 
tinuation of the Lung' Arno Acciajuoli. In the church 
of Santa Trinita (just across the street from the 
palace) is a fresco by Domenico Ghirlandajo, in 
which Palazzo Spini is represented as it was in 
the fifteenth century" (Ross). The palace contains 
some fine vaulted upper chambers that are in present 
use as clubrooms. 

At No. 20, Via della VIgna Nuova, Is the beauti- 
ful Palazzo Rucellai, a fifteenth century structure 
built by Bernardo Rossellino after designs by Leon 
Battista Alberti, for the great Rucellai family, cloth 
merchants and bankers. This family gave to Flor- 
ence thirteen gonfalonleri and eighty-five priors, and 



Castles and Palaces 



i6i 



was honored, or perhaps dishonored, by intermarry- 
ing with the Medici. The palace contains some curi- 




Palazzo Spini. 

ous old portraits, and the courtyard has admirable 
Corinthian pillars. In the Rucellai loggia (now 



i62 Castles and Palaces 

inclosed and used as a picture shop) opposite the 
palace " the citizens of Florence used to meet and 
discuss their affairs . . . and after the introduction 
of the game of chess from the East such large sums 
of money were lost [here] at dice, draughts, and 
chess, that a law was passed forbidding any games 
to be played in courtyards, porticoes, or loggie." 

Palazzo Pandolfino (No. 74, Via San Gallo), an 
unfinished fifteenth century palace of unusual design, 
with very fine portal and Ionic and Doric windows, 
is reputed to have been begun from a plan by Raphael. 
In the Via del Proconsolo, No. 10, is a striking palace 
called Palazzo Quaratesi built by the Pazzi in the 
fifteenth century, after plans by Brunelleschi. This 
is the great family of rivals and haters of the Medici, 
whose hate culminated in the murder of Giuliano 
and wounding of Lorenzo dei Medici by Francesco 
dei Pazzi in the Duomo in April, 1478, and the sub- 
sequent hanging of Francesco and some of his com- 
panions from the battlements of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
It was a member of this family, Pazzino di Pazzi, 
who is said to have been the first to scale the walls 
of Jerusalem in the Crusades, and who brought from 
the Holy Sepulcher the stones from which was lighted 
the Holy Fire. On Saturday of Passion Week every 
year this Holy Fire is carried by the dove from the 
high altar of the Duomo out to the fireworks car 
in the Piazza. Great crowds attend this perform- 
ance, and it is one of Florence's chief annual 
spectacles. 

In the Via Ghibellina one's attention may be at- 
tracted by eight heavy, low decorated marble pili 



Castles and Palaces 163 

rising from the sidewalk in front of a massive palace. 
This is the Palazzo Borghese built originally by the 
Salviati family. In it lived until recently Franceschini, 
a book collector of indefatigable industry but much 
eccentricity. On his death Voynich, the London 
dealer, bought his collection, " sight unseen," and is 
now engaged in the Herculean but fascinating task 
of exhuming from sealed and completely filled rooms 
the masses of books and pamphlets which the eccen- 
tric collector piled away. The collection will cer- 
tainly number over a million pieces and in it have been 
found already a number of valuable incunabula and, 
stuffed as " filling " into thick binding of common- 
place tomes, such interesting things as illustrated 
Medici playing cards and Strozzi wedding invitations. 

An interesting palace open to the sightseer on cer- 
tain days in the week is the seventeenth century Cor- 
sini (No. 7, Via Parioni), with splendid halls and 
hangings and a collection of pictures. The Corsini 
have been one of the greatest families in Florence 
from time unremembered. Pope Clement XII was a 
Corsini, and the family tree is a veritable blue book 
of cardinals, bishops, priors, and princes of state. 

This catalogue of Florentine palaces could run on 
for many pages. But it must stop right here. Or, 
at least, it must stop with the bare outlining of a 
walk that I can recommend to any one wishing a 
glimpse of some of the older, more rugged, and less 
conspicuous palaces that cluster so thickly in the nar- 
row streets near the Arno. 

Start may be made from the Mercato Nuovo, 
that of the flowers and straw hats and the big bronze 



164 Castles and Palaces 

boar; and the way may lead first down the Via Por 
Santa Maria toward the river. Here on either hand 
are the remains of the palaces of the Amidei. At No. 
5, which is the tower of the Palazzo Lambertesca 
and in the little church of San Stefano near it (just 
off the street), was plotted the murder of young 
Buondelmontc, that homicide that was so large a part 
of the beginning of the Guelph-Ghibelline war in 
Florence. 

Opposite the Lambertesca Tower is the picturesque 
tower of the Girolami, both of these antedating the 
days of Medicean rule. Turn into the Borgo SS. 
Apostoli, right, and follow along its dark, narrow 
way between continuous relics of the old palace- 
fortress days. Here are the old palace of the Altoviti 
(near the little church of SS. Apostoli in the Piazza 
del Limbo) and the Palazzo Borgherini (No. 15), 
containing some good pictures and bearing a relief 
of the Virgin and Child by Benedetto da Rovezzano 
on its angle-wall. In narrow streets near here, the 
Via delle Terme and others, are numerous remains 
of old and historic structures. 

We issue from the narrow Borgo SS. Apostoli into 
the always animated Piazza Santa Trinita. At our 
left is the Palazzo Salimbeni, and adjoining it 
Palazzo Buondelmontc with Miss Zimmern's beauti- 
ful roof-garden on its top. It faces the north wall of 
Palazzo Spini, whose south face is on the river. The 
short stretch of the Via Tornabuoni is almost entirely 
made up of old palaces refurbished and changed to 
suit the requirements of shopkeepers and clubmen. 
Along the river front, too. Lung' Arno Acciajuoli and 



Castles and Palaces 165 

Lung' Arno CorsinI, running both ways from the 
bridge, is a whole line of palaces and historic houses 
turned into hotels and pensions. 

We cross the beautiful bridge and leave its south 
end between Palazzo Frescobaldi at the left and 
Palazzo Capponi on the right. The Capponi family 
has numerous claims to celebrity, but none more valid 
than old Pier Capponi's inspired reply to Charles 
VIII, who attempted to coerce the Florentine during 
a treaty conference by the threat: 

" Sign as I have dictated or we shall blow our 
trumpets." 

" And we, Sire, shall ring our bells." 

We turn sharply to the left into Borgo San Jacopo. 
Here is another line of mutilated old towers and 
palaces, including, on the right, Palazzo Rossi 
(corner of the Via Guicciardini) , Palazzo Ridolfo, 
Palazzo Belfredelli, and the tower of Palazzo Mar- 
sili opposite the church of San Jacopo. On the 
left are the towers of the Barbadori and Lotti and 
the Palazzo Corno with a fine fourteenth century 
court. 

From the Borgo San Jacopo we come into the 
noisy little piazza at the end of the Ponte Vecchio. 
Here in the corner of a house wall is a fountain 
above which Is the niche, now filled by a Bacchus, 
in which was the statue of Mars, at whose feet the 
murdered young Buondelmonte fell. Across the 
street, the Via Guicciardini, rises the old tower of 
Palazzo Mannelli "where Boccaccio frequently 
visited his friend and transcriber, Francesco de' Man- 
nelli." And here we enter the Via de' Bardi along 



i66 Castles and Palaces 

which are the remains of the many palaces and houses 
of this famous family and its retainers. A score or 
more were inhabited by the insolent Bardi at the time 
of the great uprising against them of the citizens; and 
the final sacking and burning of these palaces took 
place only after a prolonged and desperate struggle. 
The weak point in the Bardi's position was the 
swiftly rising hill behind them. It was from this 
dominating point that the besieging citizens finally 
made their successful assaults. 

The Via de' Bardi wanders on up the river to the 
Piazza Mozzi, on which lie the attractive old Mozzi 
palace and garden (No. 3) associated with much of 
the important history of the Guelph-Ghibelline strug- 
gle. Here also is the large Palazzo Torrigiani (No. 
6). "It was the insult offered by Giuliano Sal- 
viati (son of Landomia dei Medici and intimate of 
Duke Alessandro) to Luisa Strozzi at a masked ball 
here in 1534 that began the feud between the Medici 
and Strozzi." 

Farther up the river rises the new Palazzo Ser- 
ristori. It is built upon the old one in which Mala- 
testa Baglione, the treacherous and compromising 
military chief of Florence at the time of the siege of 
the city by the Papal-Imperial army in 1530, had his 
headquarters. And with this egregiously new speci- 
men we may end our search for relics of those fierce 
proud days of embattled Florence in her towers and 
fortress-palaces. 



CHAPTER XIII 
STRAY PICTURES ON MONASTERY WALLS 

ONE may or may not have a fancy for hunting 
down stray pictures; peering at half-empty 
lunettes over doorways in dark alleys; inveigling an 
elusive caretaker to open a street-corner oratory so 
long closed that spiders have webbed its weathered 
shutters together; or finding a way to scattered chapels 
of old convents turned into hospitals or palaces made 
over into warehouses. This may all be very exciting 
and very good sport for some, for others no sport 
at all. 

One would think, perhaps, that a picture, not being 
four-legged like a fox, would need no special pursuing 
or persistence to trace to its hole and capture. My 
metaphor limps, for it is precisely when the fox gets 
into its hole that it doesn't get captured. However, 
with the stray picture it is different. With the help 
of Hare or Horner, or anybody else who has been 
there before, you locate it and go after it. It is 
there; it stays there all the time; but you come on the 
wrong day, or on the wrong hour of the right day, or 
you get drawn aside by a nearby tempting church, 
or a new shop for old brasses. You keep postponing 

167 



i68 Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

this simple, easy little thing for the sake of more 
Herculean tasks yet unfinished. 

But in persistence there is victory — and compensa- 
tion. For there is great reward, ofttimes, in the 
overtaking of the stray pictures in Florence. To find 
them all, however, would be an undertaking of many 
days; more days, certainly, than a merely temporary 
Florentine could give to it. So we may limit ourselves 
to those especially interesting ones to be found still 
in the place where they were first set; those frescoes 
that reverent hands put upon the walls of monasteries 
and convents. These pictures were the inspiration 
and the guide of the faithful; the perpetual reminder 
of the pain and joys of the devoted life. 

With the gradual taking over by the government of 
the monasteries and convents of Florence and their 
conversion into public offices, courts, hospitals, and 
barracks, many frescoed wall surfaces have been 
doomed to sudden destruction by wreckers and white- 
washers or to more gradual extinguishment by the 
dust and grime of neglect. The juxtaposition of ex- 
treme modernity and practicality with art and 
mystic piety which this modern use of the old mon- 
asteries brings about occasionally, is startling. A 
physician took me one day to the exceedingly up-to- 
date institute for phototherapy near the great hospital 
of Santa Maria Nuova. Here is installed a very elab- 
orate equipment for the treatment of certain malignant 
diseases by the application of Roentgen rays, Finsen 
light, high potential electric currents, and the like. 
And here also over a door in the little courtyard the 
white-aproned operator of electricity and Roentgen 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 169 

rays shows you with a curious apologetic smile, " if 
you have any interest in art, perhaps," a fading 
fresco of one of the Ghirlandajos! 

Often the conversion of the monasteries was so 
sudden and unlooked for that not even the removable 
art treasures could be saved. Thus is accounted for 
the sadly mutilated condition of the sculptures that 
one sees in the museums. A most pitiful and terrible 
example of this kind of disaster is afforded by those 
exquisite remnants in the Bargello of the reliefs that 
Benedetto da Rovezzano carved for ten years for 
the adorning of the tomb of S. Giovanni Gualberto. 
The artist was working in the Palazzo del Guarleone, 
outside the walls of the city, when the Papal-Imperial 
army encamped in the neighborhood to besiege Flor- 
ence. The palace was taken possession of for a 
temporary barracks by the imperial soldiers, who 
amused themselves by breaking off all the heads of 
the delicate little relief figures and finally by the total 
demolition of most of the results of the long 
labor. 

Perhaps most important and most interesting of 
these monastery frescoes are the four scattered 
cenacoli of Andrea del Sarto, Andrea Castagno, 
Domenico Ghirlandajo, and Raphael, respectively, 
and the pictures on the walls of San Marco. The 
Andrea del Sarto cenacolo in San Salvi only narrowly 
escaped destruction at the same time that Rovezzano's 
masterpiece was ruined. But its danger came from 
the Florentines themselves in their patriotic eager- 
ness to sacrifice all their own dwellings in the suburbs 
that might give shelter to the enemy. " On the 



lyo Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

24th" (July, 1529), says Grimm in his *' Life of 
Michelangelo," " the destruction of the suburbs be- 
gan. The houses were broken down with battering- 
rams such as the ancients used; trees and underwood 
in the gardens were hewn down and manufactured 
into fascines. Houses, palaces, and churches fell to 
the ground. . . . The possessors of the buildings 
often helped most eagerly in their ruin. So thor- 
oughly did the spirit of freedom dwell in the mass 
of the people, and only in a few of the richest families 
was any resistance manifested to sacrificing what be- 
longed to them. 

" In this work of destruction there occurred one of 
those little natural marvels which witness to the 
power of art over men. A number of peasants and 
soldiers were engaged in demolishing the monastery 
of San Salvi. A part of the building lay already in 
ruins when they reached the refectory, where, as was 
usual, the Last Supper was painted on the large wall. 
This work, which is still standing at the present day 
on the half-destroyed walls, fresh and in good preser- 
vation, as if all had only just occurred, is a fresco 
painting of Andrea del Sarto, and is one of the finest 
things he has produced." 

Taking a tram (either for Settignano or for Rovez- 
zano) from the Duomo, one asks to be set off at the 
point nearest San Salvi. From here, with the grace- 
ful square campanile of the old church for guide, it is 
but a few rods to the little Piazza de San Salvi. The 
entrance to the refectory (the single word " cena- 
colo " spoken to any urchin in the piazza will pro- 
duce an instant guide) lies in the Via San Salvi a few 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 171 

steps from the piazza. You pass through a small 
garden, then a long corridor lined with numerous casts 
of the school of Canova, go through an anteroom 
containing a cast of Jacopo della Quercia's wonderful 
Ilaria Guinigl tomb in the cathedral of Lucca, and 
at last enter the fine old refectory room. The cena- 
colo covers one end wall and has over it a broad 
arch bearing frescoes of four saints and the Trinity. 
The picture is so fresh (only one small defacement, 
a blotch on the face of St. Simeon, mars it), and 
the colors are so vivid, that it is hard to realize the 
years that have passed since del Sarto worked here. 
The figures all show an unusual activity and grace. 
The Christ has just declared that he will be betrayed 
by one among them, whereupon three of the disciples 
have leaped to their feet, while all look and lean 
toward the Christ figure. St. John and St. James are 
on either hand of the central figure, St. John with a 
most beautiful face, and St. James with his hand on 
his breast, evidently much startled at hearing Christ's 
words. The quiet, restful, empty room, well lighted 
and of beautiful proportions, makes a fine setting for 
the expressive picture, and one may get an enjoyment 
here that great masterpieces, in their unnatural 
crowded setting In galleries, fail to give. Indeed, It 
Is under such circumstances as these that we come to 
realize how much we lose by being compelled to 
see pictures torn from their proper setting and jum- 
bled together In a great museum. The UffizI, says 
Maurice Hewlett, is a great shambles where 2,000 
Madonnas are strangling 2,000 bimbif A cenacolo 
in a refectory can be a picture of power, even when 



172 Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

done by a weak artist; so much does It gain In signifi- 
cance and message by Its setting. 

In quite another direction from the Duomo must 
we set out to run down our second quarry, the cena- 
colo of Andrea Castagno In the conv^ent of Sant' 
Apollonia (corner Via San Gallo and Via 27 Aprlle). 
Here Is a picture of curious realism. The painter 
has selected and closely followed Jewish models for 
the faces of his figures. Rugged, coarse, black- 
bearded Jews of the common people, typical Jews 
of the Ghetto, this peasant painter has set about the 
Holy Table. But there is great strength and serious- 
ness In the composition. 

Besides the cenacolo, the room (the old chapel 
hall of the convent) contains a number of Interesting 
frescoes removed here from a villa. They Include 
curious figures of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and 
certain famous Florentine warriors, notably the 
Ghlbelllne leader Farlnata degli UbertI, " savior of 
the city." More attractive are figures of the two 
Sibyls and Esther (half-length over the door). 
Above the cenacolo are the Crucifixion, Entombment, 
and Resurrection. The whole little chamber Is of 
exceeding Interest. 

In still another quarter of the city Is Domenico 
Ghlrlandajo's Last Supper (1400) In the old refec- 
tory in the cloisters of the church of Ognlssanti (enter 
at No. 34, Borgo Ognlssanti). The first Impres- 
sion, as one enters the long, rather low-celllnged room, 
is one of cheer and out-of-doorsness. The light, If 
the day Is bright, — and for the most pleasure from 
this picture a day of full sun should be chosen, — Is 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 173 

very good and makes the whole picture, with its 
richly laden fruit trees and flying birds and its cheer- 
ful coloring, seem a vista of some sweet garden. The 
supper scene Is of conventional type, the sleeping John 
fallen forward on the table and Judas sitting alone 
at the front. The faces are mostly full of interest, 
and a general animation pervades the whole group. 
Bread, wine, and cherries are on the stiffly-creased 
new table-cloth, and a peacock and dove look down 
on the scene from two upper narrow side windows 
cut in the thick wall. Very similar to this picture 
in composition and detail is that other one by the 
same master in the small refectory of the monastery 
of San Marco. Here, too, are the joyous cheer and 
light, the leaves and flowers and fruit and birds of a 
sub-tropical garden. And here again the peacock 
and dove look down in quiet wonder on the group 
at the long table. 

Even more decorative In treatment, although of 
very different manner, is that last cenacolo of our list 
in the old convent of San Onofrio, now partly a 
hospital and partly a sort of little dependence of 
the Uffizi Gallery. The picture has been variously 
attributed to Raphael, to Raphael and Perugino 
jointly, to Neri de BiccI, to Gerino da Pistoja, to 
Giannicola MannI, and to others. The sacristan, 
perhaps not a wholly disinterested critic, declares 
the three figures at the right end of the table and 
the single figure at the extreme left to be the work of 
Raphael, the others and the rest of the picture to be 
that of Perugino. On the yoke of the garment of one 
of these Raphael figures (the handsome St. Thomas) 



174 Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

is an inscription to the effect that " Raphael did this." 
And, indeed, this St. Thomas and, perhaps, particu- 
larly St. James major (the end figure at the left), 
are figures distinctly in Raphael's manner. Joseph 
Hopital maintains stoutly that the whole work reveals 
itself by its character and technic to be unmistakably 
the work of Raphael. " That it was of Raphael," 
he says, " was not doubted by those who discovered it 
in 1845 under the soot which concealed it. And 
this M. Vitel has tried to prove in his ' I'^tudes sur 
I'Histoire de I'Art ' (T. Ill, Raphael a Florence). 
. . . But Italian erudition and German science have 
found this attribution too simple." 

All the disciples have golden glories and the ar- 
rangement is the conventional one. The coverings 
of the table and long seat have a decorative pattern, 
while above (behind) the supper table are numerous 
pillars with delicate tracery, among which appear 
vistas of garden and landscape. In the middle one 
of these spaces over the three central figures of the 
supper is a beautiful picture of the agony in the 
night at Gethsemane, with the disciples sleeping and 
an angel presenting the cup of bitterness to Christ. 
The whole picture produces an effect of decoration 
and delicate lightness of treatment which may to 
some detract from the seriousness of its significance. 
The small size of the figures at the supper table in 
proportion to the rest of the picture may, perhaps, 
add to this feeling of lack of dignity and seriousness. 
It is a decorative cenacolo as compared, for example, 
with the deadly serious one of Andrea Castagno in 
Sant' Apollonia. 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 175 

In the well-lighted room of this Cenacolo di 
Foligno are hung some fifty or more original draw- 
ings and engravings of other cenacoli, as well as 
some that were never carried beyond the first con- 
ception stage. They form an extremely interesting 
and valuable series for the student, as well as for the 
casual sightseer. These drawings, together with the 
various mostly undistinguished pictures on the walls 
of the anterooms and corridor, belong to the Uffizi 
collection, having come to it as a gift from the Fer- 
roni family. Among the pictures are two by Carlo 
Dolci, of which one is held to be in his best manner. 

Like the other monastery walls of Florence, those 
of historic Dominican San Marco belong no more to 
the monks, echo no more to the matin and vesper 
bells, the chant and response, the muttered mumbling 
of the hours. But unlike many of the others they 
do not serve to Inclose soldiers and horses, or courts 
of law or hospital wards. Their decorations are 
zealously guarded, the cloister gardens kept green 
and flowering, and as one strolls through room and 
corridor he may summon up. If the mind be well 
steeped in the lore of earlier times and the heart and 
Imagination sympathetic and lively, a most vivid 
picture; so responsive Is the atmosphere of those 
peaceful days and wild, when Fra Angelico painted 
and Savonarola prayed In San Marco's Inclosure. 

In many ways no more satisfying hours can be 
spent by the temporary Florentine than those given 
to the unhindered, quiet, almost solitary rambling 
through the arcades and halls of San Marco. The 
cloister gardens with their great tree and old well, the 



176 Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 



frescoed arcade walls, the gathered relics of Old 
Florence and its palaces, the marvelous Crucifixion 

in the chapter house, 
the cenacolo in the 
refectory, and that 
wonderful, great 
loft with its unique 
series of embellished 
cells under the bare, 
rough timbers and 
overlying tiles of 
the roof; and, fi- 
nally, everywhere 
the abiding and con- 
trasted presence of 
the peaceful, meek, 
consecrated painter 
monk and the vi- 
sion-driven, fanati- 
cal, trumpeting, 
doomed preacher 
monk : — <all these 
are the sort to make a memory that lasts. 

One comes by the piazza entrance directly into the 
first cloisters and under the outstretched benedictory 
arms of its great singing tree. Around this little 
garden the arcade walls are all fresco-covered with 
the story of the life of St. Antoninus, the first prior 
of the monastery and later archbishop of Florence, 
a man of great piety and modesty advanced to place 
and power against his most earnest wish. Scattered 
among these more modern frescoes are five or six of 




Tlie cloisters of San Marco. 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 177 

Fra Angelico's, mostly small ones over the doors, but 
one filling a whole panel, a pitiful Crucifixion. Be- 
sides the Christ, there is but a single figure, St. 
Dominic, kneeling at the foot of the cross. Among 
the smaller pictures, that of Christ as a pilgrim being 
received by two Dominicans, and the face of St. Peter 
Martyr with finger to lip expressing silence, hold one 
long and wondering. 

From these arcades, doors open into the anteroom 
of the great refectory, the little chapter hall, and into 
the corridor leading to the second cloisters, smaller 
refectory, and stair to the floor above. The walls 
of both anteroom and great refectory are hung 
with numerous framed pictures, but interest centers 
in the cenacolo-like fresco on the end wall, a picture 
by Sogliani of two angels bringing aprons full of 
food to St. Dominic and eleven of his brethren 
seated at a long table (in St. Sabina, Rome). At 
each end is a priest standing, presumably just enter- 
ing by side doors. The whole picture is unusually 
symmetrical in its balanced figures, too much so, in- 
deed, to be natural and pleasing, and although fresh 
in color and attractive in many ways, it is lacking, 
on the whole, in both strength and beauty. Above 
it on the same wall is a small Crucifixion with a hill- 
village in the background, painted by Fra Bar- 
tolommeo. 

In the chapter hall is a single great fresco, the 
famous Crucifixion of Fra Angelico, covering all of 
one lunette-shaped wall. This often described and 
reproduced picture, with its marvelous Christ face, 
its numerous, vigorous figures of saints, and its curi- 



lyS Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

ous painted framework with prophets and sibyls 
with scrolls in their hands, looking out of little 
window-like spaces, makes a lasting impression on 
every one who sees It. The quiet, isolated setting 
helps much to intensify and fix the impression, but 
the picture has in Itself all of the sufficient elements 
of impressiveness: size, dramatic subject, religious 
feeling, human faces of much power. And it is all 
done in strong colors and simple design. The fresco 
was painted In the times of the first Medici. 

On the right of the entrance into the second clois- 
ters Is the smaller refectory containing a cenacolo of 
Domenico Ghirlandajo's, in most of its details closely 
approaching that other Last Supper of the same artist 
In the cloisters of Ognissantl. The life-like cat gaz- 
ing out at the spectator from near the feet of Judas 
is a new feature and there are, of course, slight 
changes throughout the picture, but the arrangement 
of the figures and the sub-tropical garden of the 
background, with its trees, fruits, and flying birds. Is 
nearly the same In both frescoes. There Is a fresh, 
open-air decorative feeling about the whole, which 
even the half light of the little room cannot destroy. 

The second, or Old Cloisters, are filled now with 
an Interesting collection of architectural bits of Old 
Florence. There are stone stemmi and escutcheons 
from the old palaces of the great families, bits of 
portals, cornices, and architraves; capitols, pedestals, 
and parts of pillars and pilasters, and in some of the 
adjoining cells fragments of mural decorations In 
colored pattern. Of special Interest to any one who 
likes to read his way as he walks the streets with an 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 179 

eye eagerly open to the palaces, towers, and portals 
of the city of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth 
centuries, are the stemmi and escutcheons that re- 
veal the former, if not the present, family ownership 
of these remainders of great days. In this San Marco 
collection one can make acquaintance with the stemmi 
of the Medici, the StrozzI, Sassetti, Ughi, Pilli, Cor- 
sini, Vecchietti, Anselmi, Brunelleschi, Tosinghi, and 
a score beside. And with those, too, of the great 
guilds; the Mercatanti with their eagle, the Regat- 
tieri with their lion and book, the Lana with their 
lamb and its halo and staff with attached pennant, 
the Medici and Speciali, the Giudici and Notari, the 
Oliandoli, the Cambii, and the rest. Students of 
design will find a fascination in the little rooms (III 
to VI) lined with the brilliantly colored pieces of 
mural decoration taken from old palaces and houses 
of wealthy merchants. In room III there is an inter- 
esting series of photographs of old streets, houses, 
and interiors made when the Ghetto and Mercato 
Vecchio were in course of destruction. 

There is still left the best of all San Marco to see: 
the upper floor with its many little bare cells, each 
one a frame for its reverent, unique little picture; the 
prior's cell of Savonarola, with its few most intimate 
relics, where, more than anywhere else in Florence, 
the strange figure of the world-moving monk realizes 
itself; the cells of St. Antoninus with his vestments 
and portrait, and that special cell built by Coslmo dei 
Medici for his holy conversations with St. Antoninus 
and the painter monks Fra Angelico and Fra 
Benedetto. 



i8o Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

It is to the little cells of the Fra Angelico pictures 
that San Marco's visitors rightly give most of their 
time and admiration. Here are the painted visions of 
an absolute belief, the outlines and colors seized from 
dreams and ecstasies that were more real than the rea- 




" The prior's cell of Savonarola, with its few most intimate 

relics." 

soned philosophies of all the schools. For Fra An- 
gelico the holy personages of Bible story and holy 
myth " refined themselves, dematerialized themselves, 
volatilized themselves even to phantoms that radiate 
sweetness, purity, confident prayer, and celestial ec- 
stasy." Fra Angelico believed with utter wholeness. 
Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and the others had 
doubts; they had troubles with their intellect; their 
pictures are human. The joy and peace in Fra 
Angelico's pictures are more than human; the Chris- 
tian idealism is the most sublime, the most nearly 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls i8i 

perfect that has been pictured. But just because 
these experiences are not of this world there may 
come, with too much looking in the little cells, a 
certain tiredness, an exhaustion of the imagination. 
It is difficult to maintain the projection of our spirit 
into such an ethereal realm. But even so, we can 
still be ravished by the colors, the grace, the pure 
beauty of these jewels of pious genius. 

On the loft floor of San Marco is also the library, 
a fine room with rows of painted missals and offices 
open in the cases down the center. It is this library 
that, next to his shade-haunted cell, brings up most 
vividly the memory of Savonarola. For here he and 
his appalled but steadfast companions awaited the 
very shattering of the whole monastery by the furious 
mob and soldiery without. Finally, it was agreed 
that Savonarola with two companions should be sur- 
rendered to the representatives of the Signoria on 
their assurance of safe-conduct to the Palazzo Vec- 
chio. This was the end of the career of this extraor- 
dinary man of strength and error. His few remain- 
ing weeks of life were those of prison cell and tor- 
ture chamber. The hanging and fire in the Piazza 
were but a merciful period to that protracted dying 
in the hands of his infuriated enemies in the Palazzo 
and Bargello. 

Of other stray pictures, besides the cenacoli and 
the frescoes of San Marco, perhaps Perugino's Cruci- 
fixion in the chapter house of the old monastery of 
Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (Via della Co- 
lonna) is the most notable. It is at least the most 



1 82 Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 

attractive to many students. It is in nearly perfect 
condition, revealing all the characteristic smoothness 
and vividness of coloring of this master. As with 
the cenacoli we sit here also before a picture in its 
proper place, our attention not distracted by other 
things to see, nor by crowding sightseers, and our 
spirit open to the devotional significance and in- 
fluence of the place; while the soft beauty of the 
picture and its great reverence give us a revelation 
of the unquestioning faith of the painter and the 
people of his time. 

At No. 69 in the busy Via Cavour is an entrance 
to the old cloisters of a small order of friars, the 
Scalzi, where an extensive series of wall frescoes in 
chiaroscuro representing scenes from the life of John 
the Baptist may be seen. To lovers or students of the 
works of Andrea del Sarto this must prove an inter- 
esting group of pictures, as all of them with the ex- 
ception of three are reputed to be the personal work 
of this artist. But to the sightseer of less personal 
interest in this curiously overpraised and over- 
derided master they will not seem so attractive. 
Perhaps their failure to please lies in the lack of 
color, for the chief attraction of this artist to most 
picture-lovers lies exactly in his fascinating richness 
of coloring. 

Finally, to close this Incomplete record of stray 
pictures on monastery walls in Florence, I must make 
reference to that haunt of aromatic fragrance, that 
sublimated drug shop, unique in the world, the Spe- 
zeria (No. 14, Via della Scala) of Santa Maria 
Novella. Here in the little old sacristy, odorous 



Stray Pictures on Monastery Walls 183 

now with a hundred perfumes, is a series of frescoes 
by Spinello Aretino that are well worth the visiting. 
They are as fragrant with color, freely restored 
though they may be, as the airs of the room are with 
essences. The pleasantest way to reward the drug- 
gist for your permission to wander at will in his 
rooms of color and odor is to buy from him a little 
package of orris root powder. There is no better in 
Florence. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SCULPTORS FROM THE HILL-SIDE 
QUARRIES 

ON the precipitous eastern face of Monte Ceceri, 
that high hill over Fiesole, one sees many dark 
caverns, and going in and out of them, and thread- 
ing narrow shelving paths and roads among them, 
many men and carts and horses and donkeys. These 
are the great quarries from which, age-long, the free- 
stone has come for the pillars and palaces of Florence. 
And as one drives or rides by tram to Fiesole or 
Maiano or Settignano, he sees by the roadway occa- 
sional rough sheds from which come the sounds of 
rock-chipping and about which are stone splinters and 
dust. In the caverns on the hill-side are the rough 
quarriers and hewers of stone; in the sheds are the 
skilled workmen, the dressers and carvers of free- 
stone and marble. And from these hill-side schools 
of lithologic industry and art have come those gradu- 
ates, those exceptional few, whom we call the stone- 
carver sculptors or the sculptors from the hill-side 
quarries. Matriculating as humble stone-masons, 
they have graduated as skilled and endowed sculptors. 
Mino da Fiesole, Benedetto da Maiano, Deslderio 
da Settignano, and the brothers RossellinI from the 

184 




Tomb Monument of Carlo Marzuppini 

Desiderio da Settignano: Santa Croce 



The Hill-side Sculptors 185 

same village, Benedetto da Rovezzano and a few 
others less distinguished, are the names that compose 
a special list of alumni of this primitive hill-side 
school of art. 

Most of the other Tuscan sculptors of fame have 
had another sort of instruction and apprenticeship. 
They have come from the goldsmith shops of the city. 
And this difference in early instruction and character 
of the ateliers is revealed at once in the markedly 
differing manner of work and conception of the two 
groups of sculptors. The city pupils began from the 
first to work on the human face and figure; the quarry 
and stone-carver sculptors learned first architectural 
detail and decoration. And through all their work 
this familiarity with the forms of pillar and capital 
and pediment, and this facility in decorative treat- 
ment, stand out conspicuously. Tombs, tabernacles, 
and pulpits, with decorations and figures in relief, are 
their principal product. They hav^e left only a few 
isolated statues and busts and heads. And all of them 
were architects as well as sculptors. 

Of course, these men that I have named were much 
more than merely the exceptionally skilled ones 
among a host of quarrying and stone-cutting work- 
men. Each of these few is endowed with more or 
less of genius. Each was an artist born, as well as 
a stone-carver and sculptor trained from boyhood in 
an atmosphere of marble dust and industry. But 
there is no doubt that the conditions surrounding 
these practical stone-cutting shops were very favorable 
to the development and flowering of the germ of 
genius in any of the busy workers. It is because 



i86 The Hill-side Sculptors 

Italian art so interpenetrated Italian life, says Edith 
Wharton, because the humblest stone-mason followed 
in some sort the lines of the great architects, and the 
modeler of village Madonnas the composition of the 
great sculptors, that so much came from such ap- 
parently prosaic and unpromising sources. And 
always among these hundreds of stone-masons and 
village sculptors there was the likelihood of the com- 
ing forth of the one or two that had in them the 
breath of genius. Desiderio and Mino, Benedetto 
and the Rossellini, were these one or two from the 
villages on the slopes above Florence. These villages 
nestling there in their olive orchards heard each 
day the bell call from Giotto's tower in that great 
city below them, a city ready and eager to welcome 
and provide for any sons of worth whom they might 
produce. Florence was fortunate, without doubt, to 
have such genius budding and expanding in the olive 
orchards of her surrounding hills; but so were these 
others fortunate in having a patron so quickly percep- 
tive and generous. 

It is in Florence especially that one sees the most, 
and for the most part the best, of the work of the 
decorative sculptors. The tombs of Santa Croce, 
Fiesole, San Miniato, and the Badia, the tabernacle 
in San Lorenzo, and the mutilated reliefs in the Bar- 
gello, are masterpieces that only Florence can boast. 
But here and there, all over Italy, from Naples to 
Lombardy, are works in their proper places, while in 
the museums of London, Berlin, and Paris are still 
others taken from their setting and put against walls 
or on pedestals in rows of artistic miscellany. But it 



The Hill-side Sculptors 187 

is in Florence that one gets most certainly and happily 
acquainted with these facile and exquisite carvers. I 
have not counted how many works of distinction they 
have scattered through her churches and public build- 
ings, but there are more than two score, nearer three 
score, perhaps. One begins to realize their abun- 
dance only after beginning a little to look specially 
for them. Hardly one of the larger churches is with- 
out one or more of their tombs or ciboriums, and 
several of the smaller churches have pieces nearly as 
good. In the Palazzo Vecchio there is a carved 
doorway and the Bargello houses a dozen or more 
gathered together busts, tondos, and stray bits, be- 
sides those most precious relics of Benedetto da 
Rovezzano's masterpiece hacked to pieces outside 
the walls by the imperial soldiers In the siege of 

1530- 
But with all this abundance there is in no one place 

too many of them. They are many, but they are In 
many places. And the search for them and their dis- 
covery — that is, their discovery by one for oneself, for 
none probably remains undiscovered to the critics — 
Is a delight that grows with its success. Their details 
and technique, their delicacy and joyous feeling, their 
delight In leaves and flowers and curling vine tendrils, 
Ithe originality and sensitiveness of their composition 
and the beauty and strength of their faces and figures, 
reveal themselves ever more clearly and convincingly. 
As these men worked, they grew. From pillars and 
capitals and architraves, they went to flowers and 
fruits and leaves; from these to birds and small ani- 
mals; from these to the human face and form. The 



i88 The Hill-side Sculptors 

putti and angels, and the peaceful sleeping men on 
their sarcophagi, modeled in such full relief as to have 
all the effect, nearly, of isolated figures in the round, 
are the culmination of their work. From decorators 
and makers of architectural detail they became sculp- 
tors. Or rather, they became architects, decorators, 
and figure sculptors all in one. 

I have not the presumption to judge the work of 
these men; neither to compare them among them- 
selves nor with the other sculptors of their time. As 
to the latter matter one word will suffice: they are 
different. Donatello and Pisano and Verrocchio and 
the others used decoration, but they were certainly 
primarily modelers of the human figure. Desiderio, 
Mino, and Benedetto seem, despite all their achieve- 
ments in modeling faces and bodies of cherubim and 
angels and recumbent men, primarily workers in 
architectural detail and ornamentation in marble 
cloths and hangings, leaves and flowers, shells and 
designs of dream fancy. They worked, too, almost 
exclusively in relief, while most of the others worked 
chiefly In the round. 

As to their relative standing among themselves, 
expert opinion seems to rank Desiderio first In point 
of genius and execution. Benedetto da Maiano was 
most conspicuous perhaps as architect. Mino da 
Fiesole was most prolific and consistent. But they 
were all really much of a piece. If Dcsiderlo's 
Marzupplnl tomb In Santa Croce is finer than Ber- 
nardo Rosselllnl's Bruini tomb in the same church, 
Desiderio has no such great architectural group to 
his credit as has Rossellino In Faenza. If San 




Photo. Alinari 

Detail of the ToxVib Monument of Carlo Marzuppini 

Desiderio da Settignano: Santa Croce 



The Hill-side Sculptors 189 

Miniato above Florence, to the east, is distinguished 
by Antonio Rossellino's masterpiece, the tomb of 
Cardinal James of Portugal, Fiesole's Duomo 
above Florence, to the west, is equally distinguished 
by Mino da Fiesole's tomb of Bishop Salutati. If 
the figure reliefs of Benedetto da Maiano on the 
pulpit in Santa Croce approach near to one's idea of 
perfect work of this kind, so also do those pitiful 
headless ones of Benedetto da Rovezzano in the Bar- 
gello. It is, indeed, truly hard to say who was the 
greater among them. And it is perhaps unnecessary 
to attempt to say it at all. 

Desiderio da Settignano, born in 1428, was the son 
of the stone-cutter named Bartolommeo di Francesco, 
usually called Ferro, who lived in the little hill-side 
village which Desiderio did so much to make famous. 
He and a brother were brought up to the parental 
handicraft, Desiderio himself being made a member 
of the guild of Maestri di Pietra of Florence in 
1453. He seems to have come under the eye of 
Donatello and to have received some instruction from 
him. In the Pazzi chapel in Santa Croce, the frieze 
of angel heads in medallion reliefs was executed by 
Donatello and Desiderio together. He grew to 
artistic manhood rapidly, for all of his work was 
done and his life finished by 1463. 

Desiderio's bequests to the world of art were not 
many. To die at thirty-five, when one's undertakings 
are of the character of Desiderio's, necessarily means 
a short list of completed pieces. But in his list are, 
perhaps, the best examples for all time of the particu- 
lar genre to which his work belongs. The tomb of 



190 The Hill-side Sculptors 

Cardinal Carlo MarzuppinI, secretary to Pope Eu- 
genic IV, in the Church of Santa Croce, is unequaled 
as a combination of architectural composition, deli- 
cacy, and fancy of decoration and thoroughly sculp- 
tural treatment. It may well serve as a standard of 
measure and possibility of such kind of work. It is 
hard to overpraise any one artistic element in it, and 
equally hard to select any one detail for special con- 
sideration because of the risk of an apparent dis- 
paragement of others. My own eyes linger longest 
on the structure and decoration of the sarcophagus 
under the noble recumbent figure of the Cardinal. 
The head-like suggestion of the flowers in the spiral 
coils, the natural unnaturalness of the hairy feet issu- 
ing from the flanks of leaves and scrolls, and the 
beautiful bird-pinioned pecten are all pure outgrowths 
of the fancy of genius. 

Across the city, in San Lorenzo, pretty effectively 
concealed behind a tawdry altar front in the north 
transept, is another exquisite exhibition of Desiderio's 
powers. It is a small tabernacle or altar piece with 
figures, joyous putti, a frieze of scrolls, fruits, and 
winged heads, and an architectural treatment involv- 
ing perspective, all worked into a thoroughly har- 
monious whole. It was the Gesu Bambino above this 
altar, says Hare, that was carried through the streets 
of Florence by an army of children, who at the in- 
stigation of Savonarola called for every work of art 
of an immoral tendency that it might be destroyed 
and burned. 

In the Badia is a charming relief of Desiderio's, 
and in Santa Trinita a wooden statue of the Mag- 




Photo. Aliuar 



Tomb Monument of Leonardo Bruini 

Bernardo Rossellino: Santa Croce 



The Hill-side Sculptors 191 

dalen begun by him and finished by Benedetto da 
Maiano. The oratorio of Santa Trinita in Settignano 
claims a relief as his. It is in his style, but may be 
the work of a pupil. Finally, in the Bargello are sev- 
eral heads and busts attributed to Desiderio, but some 
perhaps wrongly. A competent amateur assures me 
strongly that the exquisite " head of a boy " in 
bronze in the Bargello cannot be Desiderio's. On 
the other hand, the Christ Child and St. John at the 
high altar in the little church of San Francesco (Via 
Palazzuolo) attributed to Donatello are more prob- 
ably Desiderio's. There are also certain other scat- 
tered works in Florence attributed to Desiderio, but 
among them is nothing of special note. 

Outside of Florence the artist is represented in 
Prato by the recumbent figure of the tomb of G. 
Inghirami in the cloisters of San Francesco, and in 
the museums of London, Berlin, and Paris by various 
pieces, mostly busts in marble and terra-cotta. The 
famous bust of Marietta Strozzi, long in the Strozzi 
palace, is now in the Louvre, where is also a bust of 
John the Baptist (attributed by some to Donatello). 
There are some interesting drawings by Desiderio in 
the Uflizi (rooms of the " collection of sketches by 
the great masters "). 

The Rossellini, Bernardo and Antonio, were the 
two unusual ones of five brothers all stone-workers 
and sculptors of Desiderio's village, Settignano. 
Bernardo (1409-1470) was the older of the two 
brothers, Antonio (1427-1479) perhaps the more 
gifted. But it is comparing excellence against excel- 
lence to attempt to determine the relative standing of 



192 The Hill-side Sculptors 

these two men. Bernardo's tomb of Leonardo Bruini 
in Santa Croce is in most ways the equal of Antonio's 
famous tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal in San 
Miniato. Of this latter Freeman says that if it does 
not equal Desiderio's work in composition and orna- 
mental detail it, nevertheless, has an " emphasized 
appeal of a special quality. To the Christian no 
stronger symbol could be given of a spirit sealed in 
slumber to await its resurrection; and in showing im- 
pressively the dignity the human body may express 
when freed of all the accidental agitations of life, it 
suggests equally noble possibilities to be obtained by 
the human spirit in less troubled spheres." 

Bernardo, as architect in the service of Pope Nich- 
olas V, and later of Pius II, necessarily exercised 
much of his activity away from Florence. In par- 
ticular, he gave much time to the construction of an 
elaborate group of buildings erected by Pius II at 
Faenza, his native town. In Pistoja, Empoli, and 
Arezzo, too, he has left considerable work, both 
architectural and sculptural. Antonio traveled much 
in Italy, scattering his gifts from the north to the 
extreme south. They can be found in Prato, Fer- 
rara, Empoli, and Naples. Also, a generous measure 
of collected busts and reliefs exists in the museums 
of London and Berlin. 

In Florence, Bernardo is represented by the Pa- 
lazzo Rucellai, which he built after plans original 
with Alberti; by the Bruini tomb in Santa Croce; 
by the monument of Beata Villana in Santa Maria 
Novella, and by a number of reliefs, busts, and 
statuettes in the Bargello (nth and 12th rooms). 




Photo. Aliiir 



Altar 

Mino da Fiesole: Sant' Ambrogio 



The Hill-side Sculptors 193 

Antonio has left to Florence the Cardinal of Portu- 
gal's tomb, in San Miniato; a beautiful Madonna 
and Child in mandorla (memorial to Francesco 
Nori) in the nave of Santa Croce; and several pieces 
in the Bargello, notably a fascinating relief tondo of 
the Madonna Adoring the Babe. 

The Rossellini used fewer shells, leaves, flowers, 
fruits, and fancy scrolls in their stone tracery than the 
others. At the bottom of the Portuguese Cardinal's 
tomb, the decorations of the front of the base include 
a skull, snakes, two unicorns, and two sitting figures; 
while in the Bruini tomb the base front contains six 
putti and a medallion animal-head. The Portugal 
tomb is marred rather than helped by the imitation 
of drawn curtains, but its putti on the sarcophagus 
and its flying angels supporting the Madonna and 
Child medallion are pure delights. 

The most prolific of the group, and the one who 
gives the most clean-cut impression of evenness and 
consistency in his work — in its weakness, as in its 
strength — is Mino da Fiesole, whose masterpiece, the 
tomb of the Bishop Salutati, with its unforgettable 
face, is in the old Romanesque Duomo of the his- 
toric village whose name the sculptor bears. Mino 
(143 2- 1 48 6) was not born in Fiesole, however, but 
over the Vallombrosan hills, in the Casentino, prob- 
ably in or near Poppi. He was an intimate friend 
of Desiderio, whom he excelled in rapidity of execu- 
tion, but did not equal in originality and strength. 
Mino's many pieces show a certain sameness of type 
in conception and execution, which may be ascribed 
to true consistency and restraint, or which, more 



194 The Hill-side Sculptors 

likely, may be the result of his limitations. This 
sameness becomes almost monotonous and wearisome 
when many of his works are examined in close suc- 
cession; but, on the other hand, it can be a source 
of pleasure when the pieces are seen at intervals. 
For there is to the beginner in the study of art al- 
ways a certain satisfaction in recognizing in the 
various scattered works of an artist a common man- 
ner of execution or type of conception. Mino's works 
are of a peculiar sweetness and richness of tracery 
and ornament, and of a refined, if limited, sentiment. 
Freeman thinks him especially successful in the amal- 
gamation of sculpture, preferably low relief work, 
with architectural elements. " He uses such a nicety 
of taste that the monument or altar so made is not 
sculpture, but has the true artistic unity of a poem 
or of a musical composition." But exactly this, it 
seems to me, can be said as truthfully of each of 
the men composing the group of hill-side sculptors. 
Indeed, this is precisely that characteristic which, 
common to them all, distinguishes them from their 
Tuscan confreres. 

Mino's works in Florence are, besides the wonder- 
ful Salutati tomb and the beautiful altar-piece oppo- 
site it in the Duomo of Fiesole, the tombs of Ber- 
nardo Giugni and Ugo, Marquess of Tuscany, in 
the Badia; a ciborium in the Medici chapel at Santa 
Croce; the altar in the Cappella della Misericordia 
(or del Miracolo) in little San Ambrogio, in which 
church the artist is buried; a bust of Niccolo Strozzi 
in the Strozzi Palace; a bust of Niccolo So- 
derini in the house near the Piazza Santo Spirito, 




Photo. Alin.iri 



Tomb Monument of Ugo, Marchese di Toscana 

Mino da Fiesole: Badia 



The Hill-side Sculptors 195 

once belonging to the Marchese della Stufa; a Ma- 
donna relief on the wall of the house in the Via 
Martelli, opposite Palazzo Martelli (No. 8) ; some 
small pieces in Palazzo Alessandri (No. 15, Via 
Margherita) ; and a number of reliefs and busts in 
the Bargello. 

Among these last is one especially charming tondo 
of Madonna and Child, on gilded background. 
Mino worked also at Prato, Empoli, Perugia, Rome, 
and elsewhere, and examples of his art are to be 
found in all these places. The Louvre has an ex- 
quisite little head of the boy St. John, and Berlin 
has a bust of Niccolo Strozzi, as well as other pieces. 

Almost midway between Settignano and Fiesole, 
although lower on the hillslope than either, is the 
stonecutter's village of Maiano. Here lived the 
stoneworker, Antonio da Maiano, with his three sons, 
all of whom came to be sculptors and architects. 
Of the three, Benedetto reached greatest fame. He 
gave himself first chiefly to work in wooden mosaic, 
and, disappointed in not finding appreciation and 
opportunity for this work in Florence, he went to 
Hungary, carrying with him two elaborate Intarsia 
chests as gift to King Matthias Corvinus, in whom 
he hoped to find a patron. Arrived in Hungary, 
he found his precious pieces broken, and thereupon 
resolved to give up working with such flimsy ma- 
terial and to devote himself henceforth to sculpture. 
So he returned to Florence and soon found oppor- 
tunity for all his time and capacity. Among his 
earliest works was the marble doorway in the Pa- 
lazzo Vecchio, between the Sala dell' Orologio and 



196 The Hill-side Sculptors 

the Sala dell' Udienza. The admirable proportions 
and the singing decorations of this door insistently 
invite one to pass under its lintel. Its delicate orna- 
mentation, with the putti and St. John overhead, 
make it one of the most delightful of all the less 
elaborate pieces of the hill-side sculptors. The beau- 
tiful carved wooden ceiling in the Hall of the Eight 
in the same building is also a work — the design, at 
least — of Benedetto. 

Elsewhere in Florence there are numerous ex- 
amples of this woodworker, sculptor, and architect. 
In the Duomo there is a rather curious framed bust 
of Giotto, a bust of Antonio Squarcialupo, the or- 
ganist-composer, and a wooden crucifix over the great 
altar; in the Badia, an altar with reliefs; in Santa 
Maria Novella, the tomb of Filippo Strozzi; in the 
Oratorio della Misericordia, a San Sebastian; in 
Santa Croce, the very fine pulpit, called by some 
critics the artist's masterpiece; while in the Bargello 
are several busts and statuettes. And finally, the 
great Palazzo Strozzi, or rather its lower floors — 
for the enormous, slowly-building structure was in- 
complete at Benedetto's death. It was continued 
under the direction of II Cronaca, who is responsible 
for the (incomplete) striking Corinthian cornice. 
Inside the palace was for long a bust by Benedetto 
of Filippo Strozzi, the elder, which is now in the 
Louvre at Paris. 

After his return from Hungary, the artist by no 
means remained all the time in Florence. He 
worked in Naples a while, in Faenza, and Arezzo, 
and in Prato, both as architect and sculptor, and 




Photo. Alinnr 



Door of the Sala dell' Orologia 

Benedetto da Maiano: Palazzo \'ecchio 



The Hill-side Sculptors 197 

in the later years of his life he made the shrine of 
San Bartolo for the church of San Agostino at San 
Gimignano. 

Finally, we come to another Benedetto — one born 
in the later part of the fifteenth century, at Rovezzano 
on the Arno, in the outskirts of Florence, and hence in 
the custom of the time called Benedetto da Rovezzano, 
He was the only one of the stone sculptors to carry 
his activity over into the sixteenth century. Bene- 
detto da Rovezzano, to his and our great cost, was 
working on his masterpiece in those most terrible 
days of Florence, when, besieged from without by 
the armies of Pope and Emperor, and betrayed from 
within by her own war-chiefs, the star of the won- 
derful city seemed lowest. This master work of 
the artist was an elaborately carved shrine for the 
tomb of Gualberto, founder of Vallombrosa. For 
ten years, Benedetto had wrought at the wealth of 
ornament. There were hosts of small figures in 
very high relief, surrounded by flat decoration and 
tracery. In the monastery of San Salvi, where this 
wonderwork had been set up, troops were quartered, 
and these men of action, impatient of the enforced 
idleness of the besieging days, put themselves to the 
enlivening game of knocking off the heads of Bene- 
detto's little stone figures. And so we have to-day 
for souvenir of the artist's long travail and the 
relieving incidents of war's stress, the pitiful frag- 
ments housed and guarded like priceless jewels in 
the Bargello. They are worth the care. 

In the Bargello, also, Is the chimney-piece taken 
from the Casa Borgherini. Here is well shown 



198 The Hill-side Sculptors 

Benedetto's characteristic method of cutting his 
figures in such deep relief as to give them all the 
effect of round figures, while keeping his tracery and 
decoration in very low relief. The classic restraint 
of the architectural treatment, coupled with the ro- 
mantic grace and wealth of the decoration, make 
this chlmney-plece a rarely noble and charming 
work. This same combination of classicism, enriched 
by a wealth of delicate ornamentation, is shown in 
the Edicola also in the Bargello. Another of Bene- 
detto's fine works Is the door of the church of the 
Badia, with its rich but restrained decoration. In the 
historic small church of SantI Apostoll Is the tomb of 
Oddo Altovltl, in a style rather different from the 
rest of his work, while in the church of Santa Trinita, 
in a chapel on the right of the nave, is a beautiful 
altar presenting an unusual Intricacy and richness of 
fancy in Its decorative carving. Other of the artist's 
works In Florence are the tomb of Plero SoderinI, in 
the choir of the church of the Carmine; a St. John 
In the Duomo; a St. Michael In the portico of the 
church of San Salvl, and a relief of the Virgin and 
Child in the angle wall of Palazzo Borgherlnl (No. 
15, Borgo SS. Apostoll). Benedetto was the archi- 
tect of the palace of the Altovltl, near the church of 
SantI Apostoll. 

This chapter pretends to no critical " treatment " 
of these men whom I have called the " hill-side 
sculptors." It only tries to attract the special atten- 
tion of the visitor In Florence to them. To one a 
little surfeited with the long lines of pictures in 
the great galleries, a little weary of eye-straining 




Photo. Alinari 



Altar 
Benedetto da Rovezzano: Santa Trinita 



The Hill-side Sculptors 199 

inspection of frescoes in dim chapels, a quest of the 
solidly but delicately stone-bound fancies of the 
decorative sculptors may be a happy recreation. 
They are abundant, but not massed; scattered, but 
not far to seek. There are tombs and doorways, 
altars and chimney-pieces, with their combination of 
reverence and bubbling pagan fancy; sleeping hu- 
man figures, joyous cherubim, and grotesque masks, 
with their singing suggestions of nature, and their 
ingenious development of symmetrical scroll and line, 
all fixed in translucent-surfaced marble and framed 
and bound together in architectural harmony. 



CHAPTER XV 

OUTSIDE THE WALLS 

FEUDAL CASTLES AND FIESOLE 

FLORENCE is no Nuremberg or Lucca. Its 
walls have long ago disappeared. Not en- 
tirely, to be sure; there is a fine old stretch that one 
sees from San Miniato, slanting up the hill toward 
Fortezza San Giorgio. And there are a few noble 
gate towers of the ancient days still standing. But 
the swift tram cars of the circumvaUazioue, and 
the peering officers of the city customs at the bar- 
riere who look suspiciously at your bundles, and 
charge you a few pennies if you happen to be bring- 
ing a chicken to town; these are the present circling 
guards of the city. 

It would probably be better to say beyond the 
barriere, instead of outside the walls, to indicate the 
scope of this chapter, which is to tell a little of some 
of the things that are contiguous, but external to 
the city proper. The d'uitorni of Florence occupy 
two full volumes of close printing, under the well- 
informed hand of Guido Carocci, who takes you in 
his company along every roadway leading outward 
from each one of the city barriers. And if one have 
the time, and the Italian, and fancies strolling the 

200 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 



201 



country ways in search of villas and old chapels, 
fading frescoes in crumbling shrines, and spots where 
men of history and saints 
of holy myth have stood, 
he can put in many a day 
of good seeing with Ca- 
rocci for guide. And 
incidentally, and un- 
avoidably, will he see 
some of that fascinating 
beauty of the fields and 
gardens, hill-slopes and 
scenes from hilltops, that 
I have tried many times 
in this book to hint of. 
Florence and its sur- 
roundings of to-day have 
a special charm of their 
own quite apart from 
that given them by their 
association with vanished poets and artists, princes 
and priests. 

I had looked often and longingly to the north 
and up toward the two stone, fortress-like buildings 
that one sees on their hill perches so distinctly from 
the Fiesole and Settignano trams. And their fine- 
sounding names, Vincigliata and Castel di Poggio, 
kept echoing in my ears like a reminiscence of things 
already known. Were they castles on the Rhine 
or Moselle that I had sailed by regretfully summers 
ago, or were they the Wartburg or some other more 
broken and deserted stronghold that I had seen while 




San Niccolo, one of the " few- 
noble gate towers of an- 
cient days." 



202 



Outside the Walls 



tramping the Thuringian hills? Anyway, they were 
strongly reminiscent of earlier joys, and promised 
new thrills like old ones, which is always a promise 
of much seduction. 

From the piazza in front of the little church of 
Settignano a pair of iron gates open to the north 
on a broad path that drops down into the garden- 
like narrow valley 
of a very small 
stream. Crossing 
this and skirting the 
little cemetery you 
begin to push up 
the hill toward Vin- 
cigliata, through a 
straggling planta- 
tion of young cy- 
presses. What sad 
harm was worked 
to all the hills about 
Florence by the 
reckless cutting of 
the trees in past 
times! Modern for- 
estry all over Eu- 




\ \)^^VY'Ji,f!ipi . •^^"-'^fe^ vi'i 1 rope is endeavoring 
to repair these old 



" Up the hill toward Vincigliata." 

hurts, but it is a 

slow process, the reforestation of denuded hill-sides, 

long worked and worn by rain and wind. The 

ounce of prevention would have been so much 

better. 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 



203 



Higher up the forest is closer and older, and the 
way more beautiful. The road curves gently around 
the hill-slope past a farm-house or two, and past a 
little chapel set under a group of dark old cypresses, 
and then swings sharply around the head of a 
ravine, with its sides thickly set with olives and 
vines, and arrives under the great retaining walls 
of Vincigliata; good tramping and good seeing all 
the way. 

Vincigliata, solid, splendid as it is, is a disappoint- 
ment. It is too much a restoration ; it is a Cha- 
teau de Pierrefonds. 
There still remain 
scattered parts of 
its old self, and its 
interior is nobly re- 
done, presumably 
most faithfully, and 
filled with interest- 
ing things. But 
there is little of the 
musty flavor of the 
ancient Visdomini 
or Usimbardi, suc- 
cessive robber lords 
of the castle. That 
able English adven- 
turer, John Hawk- 
wood, who rides his ^^' ^^'' ^°^^^ ^^ Vincigliata. 

great horse on the entrance wall of the Duomo, is 
reputed to be responsible for the demolishing of 
Vincigliata, some time about 1350. Since then it 




204 Outside the Walls 

has undergone for six centuries the vicissitudes of 
intermittent rebuilding and restoration, although it 
remained continually in the ownership of one family, 
that of the Alessandri, for five of these centuries. 

Leaving Vincigliata, the road pushes on up the 
narrow hill shoulder toward Castel di Poggio, past 
the little church of Santa Maria a Vincigliata, and 
through a tangle of woods, until it tops the eminence, 
which is really of no mean height. Vincigliata is 
well below, while across a great deep natural amphi- 
theater Monte Ceceri lifts its much-hewn face. 

Castel di Poggio is much more satisfactory to the 
searcher for musty flavor. It seems almost deserted, 
great trees grow struggling in its court, and ancient 
vines wander up its rough walls. The tower still 
stands in its full height and strength, and parts of 
the old outer walls show how mighty and secure 
a stronghold it was in the days of the Del Manzecca. 
These Del Manzecca seem to have been a wholly com- 
petent and picturesque family of medieval highway- 
men; and from their impregnable castle on the hill- 
top they harried the country for miles about, even 
to the very skirts of Florence. It was probably 
their over-boldness in this direction that led the 
Florence Signoria, about the middle of the fourteenth 
century, to engage the valorous Hawkwood and his 
famous White Company to come over from Pisa 
and teach the Del Manzecca a needed lesson. In- 
deed, that whole line of fortress castles, inhabited by 
prideful, gentlemanly assassins of the road, begin- 
ning with Palagio al Poggio and going on with 
Vincigliata and Castel di Poggio, and ending in 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 



205 




" The tower of Castel di Poggio still stands in its full height 
and strength." 

Torre del Gandi, seems to have been captured, 
sacked, and partially razed by this all-conquering 
English mercenary. 



2o6 Outside the Walls 

Mrs, Janet Ross, the present owner and inhabi- 
tant of the old Palagio al Poggio, now known as 
Poggio Gherardo, and celebrated as the probable 
first stopping-place of Boccaccio's story-telling group 
of ladies and gentlemen, tells in her interesting 
sketch of " a stroll in Boccaccio's country," a story 
bf Vincigliata and Caste! di Poggio that is good 
reading. 

Giovanni Usimbardi (owner of Vincigliata), a 
friend of Dante, Cavalcanti, and other illustrious 
Florentines, had a daughter named Selvaggia, with 
whom the two sons of Del Manzecca (owner of 
Castel di Poggio, a short mile away) fell in love. 
Simone, the elder, asked her hand in marriage and 
was refused, so he stabbed her father, but fortunately 
only wounded him. The second son, Uberto, met 
the maiden at Mass in the church of Santa Maria 
a Vincigliata, and by his beauty and gracious pres- 
ence won her heart. Twice the life of Giovanni 
Usimbardi was saved in a battle by an unknown 
knight with a small knot of blue ribbon tied to his 
breastplate. The second time, the stranger was 
felled to the ground, and on his helmet being re- 
moved, Usimbardi recognized Uberto del Man- 
zecca, the son of his hated neighbor. The long- 
standing feud was made up, and the wedding-day 
was fixed. 

" As Selvaggia stood at her casement, in bridal 
array, watching the lithe figure on the good black 
horse, which knew the road so well down from Castel 
di Poggio to Vincigliata, she saw three men dash 
out of the wood. One seized the horse's bridle, the 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 



207 



other pulled his rider out of the saddle, and before 
the young knight could draw his sword, the third 
plunged a dagger into his heart. The murderer 
was Simone, Uberto's eldest brother. 

" The bridal bells tolled a death-knell, and Sel- 
vaggia sat with her lover's head in her lap until they 




Castel di Poggio. 

took the body away for burial. She went raving 
mad, and died sitting at her window looking at 
Castel di Poggio. And the peasants say that her 
ghost haunted the ruins of the old castle — her long 
fair hair floating behind her, and her white satin 
dress stained with blood." 

From Castel di Poggio a smooth road runs along 
the hill-crest, south and west, the valley of the Mu- 
gello and village of Ontignano on the right. The 
road curves ever more to the south and comes finally 
through Borg' Unto into Fiesole from behind, that 
is, from the side away from Florence. To the left 
of this road from Castel di Poggio to Fiesole is 



2o8 Outside the Walls 

always the mass of Monte Cecerl, with its west and 
south faces sloping and built on, but abrupt and pre- 
cipitous and all hewn into and cut away on its east- 
ern face. Indeed, the abruptness of this face is 
largely due to the extraordinary cutting and quarry- 
ing that has gone on here for centuries. For from 
these quarries, or " Caves of Fiesole," as they are 
called, has come the pietra serena that Cellini de- 
scribes in his " Treatise on Sculpture," the blue-gray 
freestone in great blocks and columns that has gone 
into the making of most of the Florentine palaces. 
Some forty of these caves are now being worked. 
The most famous old one is that called the " Cave 
of the Columns," from which the columns of the 
Uffizi arcades came. The quarries are an interest- 
ing sight, with their scores of red-sashed laborers 
and sleepy, sometimes actually sleeping, drivers of 
the heavy two-wheeled carts, a-stretch in the sun 
on the slowly moving loads of stone. 

The view from the summit of Monte Ceceri is 
well worth the little exertion of the climb, A great 
stretch of Val d'Arno, all the villas and gardens 
of the Fiesolean slope, together with Florence, are 
under one's feet, while to the west and north lift 
the distant summits of great mountains; altogether 
a prospect of unusual variety and beauty. 

Fiesole itself, with its authentic tradition of 
Etruscan and Roman inhabitancy, and its proud 
memory of days when it stood before Florence in 
importance, occupies a curious position in a sort of 
high pass in the hill-crest, a position which made 
it in ancient times a guard of the way from the wild 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 



209 



country of the north. The native Fiesoleans are 
a virile and plain-spoken people, but the sophisticat- 
ing influence of many years of tourist inhabitancy 
is apparent in the town. Its principal " sights " 
are the old cathedral, with its bishop's palace; a 
pretorial building on the large, exposed piazza; a 




The Duomo of Fiesole and ruins of Roman amphitheater. 

few ruins of Etruscan fortifications and Roman 
theater and forum ; a large Franciscan convent top- 
ping the crest to the south; and finally, its many 
villas of beauty and historic association. The views 
from Fiesole, too, of Florence and Arno valley are 
famous. All these attractions make it the most 
visited spot in the Florence environs. 

The cathedral, dating from the beginning of the 
eleventh century, is one of the two strictly Roman- 



210 Outside the Walls 

esque churches that visitors to Florence can see. The 
other is San Miniato; and thus both are outside the 
walls. The church at Fiesole is less beautiful than 
that of San Miniato, but as it is in full use as a 
church while San Miniato is not, it can offer a more 
distinct impression of the fitness of the curious 
type of interior construction of these churches for 
religious serv-ice. The deviation of the choir and 
its chapels considerably above the level of the 
nave, and the open exposure of the low-ceilinged 
crypt underneath the choir, are features common to 
both churches. We heard a full musical Mass in 
the church at Fiesole on the festa of San Francisco, 
and the singing and reading from the elevated choir 
were very impressive. 

There are few monuments in the church, but one 
of these, the tomb of Bishop Leonardo Salutati, the 
famous masterpiece of Mino da Fiesole, done in 
1462, together with the beautiful altar-piece oppo- 
site it by the same sculptor, are worth a whole row 
of the modern monuments in Italy's Westminster 
(Santa Croce). The tower of the cathedral, slen- 
der and crenelated, is a conspicuous object from 
Florence. 

Below Fiesole, on the way to Florence, is San 
Domenico di Fiesole, with its Dominican convent of 
1405, where Fra Angelico lived. He painted many 
of its walls with frescoes, mostly since removed or 
destroyed. Indeed, only two now remain. The 
most famous one taken away is the Coronation of 
the Virgin, in the Louvre. 

Near San Domenico is the ancient Badia, the 




Photo. Alinari 



Tomb Monument of Bishop Leonardo Salutati 

Alino da Fiesole: Duomo of Fiesole 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 211 

primitive church of Fiesole, erected, as was the cus- 
tom of the times, outside the fortified walls. It 
fell into ruin after the cathedral was built, but in 
the fifteenth century was rebuilt by Brunelleschi and 
Michelozzo at the command and expense of Cosimo 
dei Medici. Here in 1452 that Giovanni dei Medici, 
who afterward became Pope Leo X, was invested 
with his cardinal's robes. The Badia seems to have 
been a sort of headquarters for the literary and ar- 
tistic activity of the Medici and their more im- 
mediate entourage. Lorenzo the Magnificent, and 
his precious group of Platonic philosophers and 
poets, were often here, and Cosimo had already col- 
lected in the Badia a splendid library of codices and 
rare works. These were transferred in 1783 to 
found the Laurenziana in Florence. 

The villas of the southern and eastern Fiesolean 
slopes are many and famous. From the terrace 
below the Franciscan convent you look directly 
down upon the roof of the one that Giovanni dei 
Medici had Michelozzo build for him, and which 
was later the preferred residence of Lorenzo the 
Magnificent. If the memories of those days, when 
Politian, Pico della Mirandola, Cavalcanti il Verino, 
and the others, burned their incense here to Plato 
and wrote their verses and apostrophes to his philos- 
ophy, are dim, we can at least appreciate to the full 
the wonderful beauty of the setting of this Medi- 
cean abode. Adjoining the villa, and of equal 
beauty of position and scene, is a present convent 
of the " Blue Nuns," with a splendid irregular grove 
of tall cypresses in the garden, that drops swiftly 



212 Outside the Walls 

down the hill. That other even more famous Medi- 
cean villa, Careggi, where Cosimo the Elder died 
in 1464, and after him, in the year in which Co- 
lumbus was discovering America, his son Lorenzo, 
with or without the blessing of Savonarola — will 
that ever be decided? — can just be seen peeping from 
the not far distant hill-side to the south. At Ca- 
reggi was held each year in November the banquet 
instituted by Lorenzo and his group of Platophiles 
to celebrate the birthday of Plato. From this same 
viewpoint, too, Villa Palmieri, famous as one of the 
halting-places of Boccaccio's story-telling group, lifts 
its head from the left bank of the Mugnone. In- 
deed, from this point one can see pretty nearly all 
the villas of famous name that cluster on the Fie- 
solean slopes. 

Like most of the other historic villas near Fiesole, 
the Medicean " II Palagio " has been often renamed 
with the changings of ownership. It has been Villa 
Mozzi, Villa Spence, and is at present called Villa 
Macalmont. The Germanization and Anglicization 
of Fiesole and its villas is nearly complete now; not 
many names have yet to be changed to make it en- 
tirely so. Medici, Pandolfini, Albizzi, Strozzi, Va- 
lori, and the others, are replaced by unfamiliar and 
un-Italian names, associated more with successful 
business conquest or fortunate inheritance than with 
the annals of Florentine history or art. Still, some 
of these newer names have their thrill of interest, 
albeit derived from an association of more modern 
times. Villa Landor, Villa Bocklin, and others 
hardly less familiar, maintain the tradition of literary 




ii'fi^iiiimfii 



Photo. Alinari 

Altar with Virgin and Saints in Adoration 

Alino da Fiesole : Duomo of Fiesole 



Feudal Castles and Fiesole 213 

and artistic distinction, which has ever been pecu- 
liarly associated with the Florentine villas. In 
truth, if one should enumerate to-day the names of 
all the villa Inhabitants of the environs of Florence, 
the number among them familiar to us would be 
surprisingly large. And especially so if in this list 
should be included all the inhabitants of the past 
century. Laurence Hutton, in his " Literary Land- 
marks of Florence," lists nearly a hundred well- 
known names which attach to such landmarks in and 
about the city. 

Winding down among the many villas and their 
luxuriant gardens, a half-dozen various roads find 
their way from the upper slopes to the plain below. 
That one that leads most Interestingly, perhaps, 
drops down by the towered, castle-like villa of Tem- 
ple Leader, the restorer of Vlnclgliata, goes on by 
Covoni, Villa Machlavelli, and " La Primola," on 
the hill shoulder of Malano, then runs behind his- 
toric battlemented Poggio Gherardo, and finally 
joins, on the valley floor, the Via Settlgnanese, with 
its noisy but convenient tram. Here one may take 
car either to Florence or to Settignano, as his tem- 
porary house-roof calls. 

But before making this rather trivial ending of 
so good and full a tramping trip, there Is, hard by 
the roadway, just one more Invitation to linger. 
A gray and worn little church and attached monas- 
tery, San Martino a Maiano, stands but a few rods 
away up the hill and calls to the searcher for musty 
flavor with the insistent voice of nearly ten centuries. 
There Is, to be sure, little, probably, of the old 



214 Outside the Walls 

eleventh century structure left, but the record seems 
clear of a continuous persistence of the church here 
for a thousand years. 

With this last halting our ramble over the Setti- 
gnanese and Fiesolean hills may come to an end. 
This ramble could have been as well a drive, for the 
castles, Fiesole, and the villas are all connected by 
good and smooth, if somewhat up and down hill, 
roadways. Any Florentine cabman will undertake 
the trip for ten or twelve lire. But the going on 
foot makes the podere paths free to you, and the 
intimate acquaintance with that continuous garden 
that the Tuscans make of their sunny hill-sides may 
come to be one of the longest cherished memories 
of Florence. It is one of mine: so I am glad I 
walked. 



CHAPTER XVI 
OUTSIDE THE WALLS (continued) 

SAN MINIATO, ARCETRI, CERTOSA, IMPRU- 
NETA, SIGNA, AND MALMANTILE 

OPPOSITE Fiesole, on the other side of Flor- 
ence and the Arno, are San Miniato and the 
vine-clad hill of Arcetri. With less fatigue than 
by climbing on foot up the turning road above the 
old stone gate-tower of San Niccolo, and yet quite 
as quickly and considerably cheaper than by carriage^ 
one can reach Monte San Miniato and Arcetri by 
tram — the Viale dei Colli tram, from the Piazza del 
Duomo. Monte San Miniato turns out to be rather 
less a mountain on close acquaintance than its name 
would suggest, and for many reasons the tramping 
way is the best way of all to come to its beauties. 
Starting from the Porta Romana, at the beginning 
of the " road to Rome," the pedestrian resists for 
this time, at least, the seizing desire actually to take 
the old road for the Imperial City and chooses rather 
the very modern Viale Machiavelli (left) that runs 
uphill to Villa Poggio Imperiale. This historical 
property belonged, under the name of Poggio Baron- 
celli, to one Pietro Salviati, a bitter opposer of the 
Medici. Later, on the banishment of Salviati, it 

315 



2l6 



Outside the Walls 



came into the hands of his enemies, and was rebuilt 
and extended by them, especially by Cosimo II for 
his Austrian wife, the Grand-duchess Maria Mad- 
dalena. In one of the rooms Isabella Orsini 
(daughter of Cosimo I) was strangled by her 
wronged husband, and in front of the villa occurred 




" Starting from the Porta Romana at the beginning of the 
road to Rome." 



a famous duel between Ludovico Martelli and Dante 
da Castiglione on one side, and Giovanni Bandini 
and Bertino Aldobrandi on the other — a fiery 
quartette of scions of Florence's noblest families. 
This lively old villa is now sufficiently common- 
place as a government conservatory for young 
women. 

Lined by a continuous series of expensive modern 
villas and elaborate gardens, the Viale Machiavelli 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 217 

comes in time to the circular Piazzale Galileo, from 
which it issues as the Viale Galileo and continues 
its shaded curving way toward San Miniato and 
the Piazzale Michelangelo, Thence, as the Viale 
Michelangelo, it drops in a long curve down to the 
Arno. The whole way is called the Viale dei Colli, 
and is partly traversed by the tram. Its elevated 
position and winding course along the verge of the 
long hill (Arcetri), lifted directly above the Arno 
and Florence, give it command of a most complete 
and beautiful view of the city and valley, with the 
high hills of Fiesole and the Monte Morello chain 
for background. It is undoubtedly one of the most 
notable walks or drives in all Europe. From it 
Florence and its Duomo and Campanile make an 
imperishable picture in the mind of the most driven 
tourist. 

The two special points of interest which this road 
serves to reach are San Miniato, with its basilica, 
burying-ground, and piazza, and the villa and tower 
connected with the later life and work and the death 
of Galileo. The tower, Torre del Gallo, from 
which the astronomer is supposed to have carried on 
his questionings of the stars, has been so 
heightened and changed by the present owner, who 
has converted it into a museum of miscellany, that 
it loses much of its sentiment as the veritable work- 
ing-place, if indeed it ever truly was this, of the 
famous persecuted astronomer. Much has been 
written in prose and poetry about the nights spent 
by Galileo in this observatory tower, and of the 
particular discoveries made here. But of authentic 



21 8 Outside the Walls 

facts regarding them, strangely little is available to 
the dry and dusty guide-book maker. That Galileo 
lived and died on the hill-side, and that he was visited 
by Milton, certainly once, probably twice, is true; 
and that he devoted his working hours to observa- 
tion, calculation, and speculation must also be true. 
But the zealous efforts of the local chroniclers of 
Pisa, Signa, Florence, and elsewhere, to determine 
the exact spots of each of his particular dis- 
coveries, are to be regarded as more interesting than 
informing. 

Galileo died at 23, Via del Piano di Giullari, in 
the so-called Villa Galileo, near the tower, and it was 
here that Milton visited him in 1638, and probably 
again in 1639. Pearlier, Galileo lived for some 
years at 13, Costa San Giorgio, much lower down 
on the hill-side, near the river. 

The Piazzle Michelangelo, constructed under 
the designs of Professor Giuseppe Poggi (the whole 
picturesque Viale dei Colli is also his successful 
project), is a very happily devised point of seeing 
and of rest on this long tramp. Its view of Florence, 
the Arno valley, and the bounding hills and distant 
mountains well deserves its world fame. And the 
erection here, out of doors and well lifted above the 
spectator, of a bronze replica of Michelangelo's 
great David is a most commendable act of justice 
to the sculptor. Here is where David belongs, if 
he cannot hold his original place on the platform of 
the Palazzo Vecchio. And perhaps the shade of 
Michelangelo is happier with the original David 
away from its galling " rival " by Bandinelli and 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 219 

its beautiful replica, here alone, admired by the 
world and finally dominant over the city at its 
feet. 

Around the David are replicas of the famous 
Day and Night, Twilight and Dawn of the Medici 
chapel, and only a stone's throw or more away are 
the relics of those fortifications that grew like a 
mushroom under Michelangelo's driving energy in 
those terrible days of 1530. Besieged by Emperor 
and Pope, harassed internally by dissensions between 
government and nobles, misserved by a tricking com- 
mander, Florence revealed herself a city of amazing 
resource in that struggle. And not the least of her 
resource was manifest in this turning of her greatest 
artist genius into a builder of fortifications and leader 
of fighting men. 

Above the piazza rise the two churches of the 
San Miniato hill, first, the old cypress-surrounded 
San Salvatore al Monte, with its large Franciscan 
monastery, the church called by Michelangelo, on 
account of its simple beauty of form and position, 
"la sua bella villanelle" (his beautiful country 
girl) ; and above it, entered through an old gate in 
the fortifications, the beautiful basilica of San Mini- 
ato, with its old bishop's palace (i 294-1320), Bene- 
dictine monastery, and sixteenth century tower cam- 
panile of Baccio d'Agnolo. Tradition situates a 
Christian church here as early as the fourth century 
after Christ, but authentic record of it begins only 
in the eleventh century. The church is a Roman- 
esque basilica of pure type, with elevated choir and 
low, open crypt beneath it, supported by many beau- 



220 Outside the Walls 

tiful slender marble columns of much variety of 
design and color. This old church, and that of 
Fiesole, are, as already mentioned, the only truly 
Romanesque churches in or near Florence, and, for 
its form alone, San Miniato is particularly worth 
careful examination. But this examining will also 
reveal a fine wealth of beautiful and Interesting de- 
tails of stone sculpture, tomb decoration, niello pave- 
ment, old mosaic, wood-carving, fifteenth century 
frescoes, and work In colored tiles. 

Among the fifteenth century embellishments, most 
conspicuous perhaps is the little parti-colored chapel 
or shrine built in the nave in 1448 by Michelozzo 
for Plero de' Medici to inclose a " marvelous cruci- 
fix, which was believed to have bowed its head to 
San Giovanni Gualberto, as marlclng approval of his 
generosity In sparing his brother's murderer." The 
elaborate interior paneling Is said to be by Luca 
della Robbla. 

But if this is the most conspicuous of the Renais- 
sance additions to the old basilica, more Interesting 
and important is the chapel of James, that most 
virtuous and admirable young cardinal of Portugal, 
who died while visiting Florence In 1459. The 
tomb is the masterpiece of Antonio Rossellino, and 
the four tondi set In checkered green, white, and 
black-tiled background are by Luca della Robbia. 
The recumbent figure of the cardinal and his pat- 
terned robes, and the figures of the two cherubs be- 
low his feet and head, are among the finest pro- 
ductions of the decorative school of stone-cutter 
sculptors. The tomb Is, however, somewhat marred 




Photo. Alinari 

Tomb Monument of Cardinal Jacob of Portugal 

Antonio Rossellino: San Miniato 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 221 

by the realistic drawn curtains, modeled in stone by 
the sculptor. 

The beautiful black and white marble fagade of 
the church was done in 1491, and bears an interest- 
ing old mosaic in gold, restored in the fourteenth, 
and again in the fifteenth century. The campanile, 
begun in 1524 to take the place of an earlier small 
one ruined in 1499, was still in process of construc- 
tion in 1530, when the siege of Florence took place. 
San Miniato was the center of the defense of the 
city, and all its old buildings, together with the for- 
tifications rapidly constructed under Michelangelo's 
direction, constituted a sort of fortress, which was 
the chief object of attack by Orange's army. The 
top of the campanile was broken off in order to per- 
mit the seating of two cannon, which did much to 
hold the besiegers in check, but which naturally made 
the tower the special target of their cannon. It 
was Michelangelo's versatile genius that devised the 
curious defense — rather ludicrous to think of in con- 
nection with modern artillery — of hanging great 
swinging mattresses of wool from the projecting 
parapet of the tower, which, floating freely and 
hurled here and there by the enemy's cannon balls 
without touching the walls, kept the tower uninjured. 
In front of the facade of the church itself a great 
earthwork was heaped up at Michelangelo's direc- 
tion, and thus the church also, which he called his 
" bride," was successfully carried through those evil 
days. 

All of the floor and walls of the church are 
thickly set with tombstones. In fact, it is a part 



222 Outside the Walls 

of the great burying-ground which now includes the 
pavement in front of it and practically all the space 
about the church formerly comprised within the for- 
tifications. Under Duke Cosimo the hasty and pro- 
visional works of Michelangelo were extended and 
strengthened into a veritable fortress, that bore the 
Medicean arms. This fortress remained in good 
preservation until the end of the seventeenth century, 
after which it was allowed to fall gradually into 
ruin. To-day the remains of the walls serve to in- 
close the fantastic cemetery. As the ground space 
has proven insufficient for the increasing population 
of the place, a bizarre, balconied, three-story struc- 
ture, absurd and revolting in its likeness to some 
temporary pleasure pavilion of an entertainment 
park, has been erected. This product of modern 
taste, or rather of the utter lack of it, by the side 
of the beautiful old basilica, with its abundant sugges- 
tions of Byzantine-Roman origin, an origin reaching 
back to the dark days of semi-barbarous civilization, 
must be suggestive to that constantly passing train 
of sightseeing representatives of our inodern day. 

Out by the Porta Romana, and along the Via 
Romana for two or three miles, and one comes to 
one of the show-places of Florence, the Certosa. 
The visit to it produces either one of two quite dis- 
tinct impressions and memories. Either it is left 
in one's mind as a place once of great interest but 
now a half-real, half-artificial, museum revelation of 
the mysteries and mummeries of a monastery. Or 
it is a memory undisturbed by any knowledge of 



San Minlato, Certosa, Signa 223 

the national ownership and supervision of the con- 
vent, and wholly satisfying as that of a wonderful 
medieval fortress convent, Isolated and inviolate, 
seated nobly on a beautiful hill overlooking a laugh- 
ing valley and plain, to the peoples of which the soft 
echoes of the monastery bells come as frequent re- 




The Certosa, " seated nobly on a beautiful hill overlooking a 
laughing valley." 



minders of the devoted, self-mortifying, contem- 
plative, ecstatic life of the spirit. 

The first sight of the great building, or rather 
group of buildings, gray, walled in, tower-crowned, 
on the hill summit, goes far to aid in realizing the 
Certosa as a genuine relic of medieval monasticlsm. 
Which, indeed, it is, only It happens to be a show 
relic, made self-conscious by over-attention. The 
short, winding walk up the hill from the Via Romana 
tram (which leaves the Mercato Nuovo In Florence 
every twenty minutes or so) gives one a moment 
to recall the story of the foundation and rapid up- 



224 



Outside the Walls 



L?'t^'^ 






, : i 



building of the great fortified monastery. Its 
church and cloisters, school-rooms and living quar- 
ters were built by Niccolo Acciajuoli, in the middle 
of the fourteenth century. The hill is called Monta- i 
guto, and the monastery was first known as the Cer- \ 
tosa of Montaguto. Now it is called the Certosa 
of Galluzzo, from the village at its foot, or, more - 
often, the Certosa of the Val d'Kma, from the ^ 
little stream that winds about the hill. Certosa is ' 

the name of any ' 
,^-— ■= monastery or clois- ; 

ter of the Carthu- > 
sian monkish order. . 
The few white- . 
robed monks, last of 
nearly one hundred ^ 
that formerly lived 
here, whom the gov- 
ernment permits to 
finish their silent , 
lives in the monas- ' 
tery, serve as guides ; 
to the visitors, and ; 
help the imagination : 
in seeing the real i 
Certosa. They lead i 
one by devious ways i 
through church and 
cloisters, into small 
chapels, and along 
cool corridors, and into their own little rooms and 
gardens. There is much to see and a good deal 




g^jiuuC""' 



Certosa has "a beautiful cloister 
garden, with a fascinating stone 
well in its middle." 



San Miniato, Certosa, Sigiia 225 

to feel. There are pictures and carved stalls; a 
beautiful cloister garden, with a fascinating stone 
wall in its middle; and always from the outer rooms 
the reaching views out over the Ema and its valley, 
and across it to distant hills and scattered villages. 

Of all the artistic treasures of the Certosa, easily 
first are the tomb reliefs of the Acciajuoli family in 
the church, and reputed to be the work of Andrea 
Orcagna and Donatello. It is the figure in low 
relief of Cardinal Agnolo Acciajuoli in the chapel 
of S. Andrea that is attributed to Donatello, while 
the four tombs of the founder, Niccolo; his son, Lo- 
renzo; his sister, Lapa (wife of Manente Buondel- 
monte), and his father, are attributed to Orcagna. 
The tombs are in excellent preservation, and the 
figures, especially those of Lorenzo and of the Car- 
dinal Agnolo, are admirable. 

The usual souvenir of the visit to the Certosa is 
a primitively patterned little jug of the special 
liqueur made in the monastery. This liqueur is less 
famous than that of the Peres Chartreux — and de- 
servedly so. If one wants it, however, it is to be 
got in the Farmacia. The most interesting guide 
among the few remaining monks is an Irishman, of 
clever brain and tongue. But there is hardly any 
one of these shuffling, white-robed guides but is en- 
tertaining. 

If one is of an adventurous spirit, and would get 
a little beyond the obligatory sights, he can find 
opportunity and reward in plenty for indulging this 
impulse by pushing out a little farther into the coun- 



226 Outside the Walls 

try. Not very far beyond the Certosa, two or three 
miles, perhaps, is an objective point for a day's out- 
ing. This is Impruneta, a village of pottery work- 
ers and contadini, with a famous old square-towered 
church that houses a few very precious religious and 
artistic relics. The religious relic beyond price is 
a miracle-working Madonna figure, always heavily 
veiled, that issues in holy procession whenever there 
is a plague to stop in Florence or roundabout. The 
art relics are certain very beautiful works of the 
della Robbias. 

Impruneta is on the high bounding hill range 
south of Florence. From our roof-terrace we see 
it on all clear days, a spot hovered over by the smoke 
of its potteries, and marked by a single tall, square 
tower cutting the horizon. The village seems to 
nestle in a shallow pass in the hill-crest, and 
always had for us someway an alluring invitation 
to visit it. And the day came when we responded 
to this call. It is a day we shall not forget for its 
country scenes and simple, cheerful people, singing in 
their vineyards and along their fragrant lanes. 

By tram to Tavernuzze, which is beyond the Cer- 
tosa, and then by a little diligence, or on foot, up a 
long, winding way among the hill-slope vineyards. 
Men, women, and children were gathering the last 
of the grapes, and slow, white oxen were hauling 
the bigonie and casks to the wine-sheds. A frag- 
mentary chapel on a nearby dominating hilltop was 
pointed out as the last remnant of a once powerful 
stronghold of the robber-baron Buondelmonte fam- 
ily. Perched above the valley road leading from 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 227 

Rome and Siena, these gentlemen highwaymen levied 
toll on all passersby, and only gave up their lucra- 
tive profession on the insistent request of a Floren- 




" Slow, white oxen were hauling the bigonie and casks to the 
wine-sheds." 



tine army. By the terms of their capitulation with 
honor, they were to remove to Florence and live 
under the regardful eye of authority, although with 



228 Outside the Walls 

full freedom and princely standing. They soon 
came to be one of the most powerful families of 
the Florentine self-knighted nobility. It was the 
murder of a light-worded Buondelmonte at the foot 
of the Mars statue at one end of Ponte Vecchio that 
set all the Florentines at work fighting each other, 
as Guelphs and Ghibellines. 

In Impruneta village itself, a village dating from 
Etruscan and Roman times, and that has become, 
because of its wonder-working Madonna image, a 
famous pilgrim center, the chief objective point is 
the old church, large for the little town, but not for 
the great open square on which it faces. The 
church, which boasts an eleventh century founda- 
tion, was built about as it stands now by a repentant 
Buondelmonte, in the sixteenth century. Within it 
are a few examples of the work of Luca and Andrea 
della Robbia, in their simpler, purer manner, as fine 
as may be found anywhere. They include a taber- 
nacle or shrine, flanked on cither side with large 
figures of Saints Augustine and John the Baptist, 
and with a predella below of wonderfully graceful 
and beautiful flying angels. The very expressive 
Crucifixion that was originally within the frame of 
the shrine has been replaced by a piece of the True 
Cross, guarded by iron doors, and has been put in 
the adjoining chapel to the right. At the left of 
the nave is the chapel of the hidden Madonna, and 
this also is adorned by the handicraft and genius 
of the della Robbias. There are two large figures 
of St. Paul and St. Luke, and a colored ceiling and 
frieze. The chapels themselves are perhaps the 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 229 

work of MIchelozzo, the favorite architect of Co- 
simo de' Medici. 

We saw some other objects of interest in the 
church: a beautiful carved singing gallery, a crucifix 
by Giambologna, and in the nave and sacristy cer- 
tain pictures of interest to students. But we were 
of mind to get out again into the open air; into the 
piazza where old women and young women and 
children and babies were placidly weaving straw 
hats; where the white oxen were slowly dragging 
their laden carts of half-crushed grapes spreading 
the vintage odor in all the air. We bought some 
grapes and radishes to add to our lunch basket, and 
went a little way up into the pine wood that presses 
to the very edge of the village. It is, indeed, from 
this pine wood, that in old days covered all the hills 
hereabout, that Impruneta gets its name through the 
rather extraordinary corruption of Pineta. 

Then we came into the village again, and had 
coffee in a little cafe garden, where laden fig-trees 
dripped their sweet juice, and even let fall their 
golden fruit, ripe to bursting, on to our very table. 
Then we wandered on, buying some little donkey 
bells for souvenirs, and started fairly on our home- 
ward way, only to be attracted by a roadside villa 
with a great hill-slope garden that was too inviting 
to pass without trying for permission to explore it. 

But certainly, the forestieri might come in and 
see not only the park, but the villa itself, and the 
monkeys of the padrone, and everything, for the 
padrone was in England, and had left express word 
that inquiring strangers were to be made welcome ! 



230 



Outside the Walls 



And so we did see It all — a curious villa home of a 
wealthy bachelor, crowded with pick-me-ups of every 
sort, from sword-fish saws to valuable-looking old 
books In the crowded library. And live monkeys 
and cockatoos, and a wonderful bathing pavilion, 
mostly decoration and smoking loggia, and with con- 







m«s* 




"A cabbage bed, with beautiful great pottery vases set about 

in it." 



siderably less than luxurious bathing facilities. And 
lastly, a cabbage bed, with beautiful great pottery 
vases set about In It, the most ornamental cabbage 
bed one could ever hope to see. 

Then on down the winding way, the beautiful 
hill-slope way, towards the Via Romana. Sweep- 
ing views of Arno valley, of red-gray Florence and 
her background hills. We ate grapes as we walked 
and figs when we rested. We passed a little church 
that must have been worth entering, but it was too 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 231 

fine outside. And we came to the great villa of the 
Antinore family, Villa Rose, but we preferred to 
walk steeply on down its magnificent avenue of cy- 
presses than to try for admission and curiosity-hunt- 
ing. Finally, even in the Via Romana tram, there 
was interest. The prideful owner of an enormous 
bunch of grapes hung it so conspicuously to the over- 
head hand-rail that the good-natured dogana officer 
at the Florence gate simply had to take cognizance 
of it and charge its indignant owner one soldo for 
octroi ! 

Another objective point for a day's outing with 
a little tramping in it is Signa and its nearby coun- 
try. It is easily reached by tram, or by the Florence- 
Empoli railway line. The tramping comes in con- 
nection with a visit to Malmantile, the curious forti- 
fied village or great unroofed stockade-like castello, 
which crowns a hilltop on the old highway from 
Florence to Pisa. Signa to-day is primarily a place 
of straw-hat plaiting; in old days it seems to have 
been mostly given over to fighting and burning and 
pillaging. 

No Florence visitor but gets to know the straw 
hats of Signa; the great piles of them in the Mer- 
cato Nuovo — pale blue, rose, green, white, and just 
straw color, and so light and flexible and durable, 
and with it all so cheap. Not, indeed, that all 
" Leghorn " hats come from Signa, but many do, 
while most of the others come from any of a dozen 
other Tuscan villages, rather than from Livorno on 
the sea. After the harvest, the commonest of all 



232 Outside the Walls 

village and country-road sights Is the constant, un- 
regarded, automatic shuffling and bending of the 
little straws In the hands of the women and girls. 
They plait as they walk along the road or sidewalk, 
as they gossip and laugh with each other, as they 
sit in reverie in chairs before the house doors. Un- 
der one arm is the bundle of prepared straws, under 
the other the coiled-up, long " string " or braid of 
already plaited straw, and in the two hands held 
together the growing end of this braid, with Its 
bobbing, bending tuft of separate straws. There 
are usually from four to six straws in the tuft, but 
the old women handle even eight or nine. There 
are shops or factories, too, where long rows of ex- 
pert workers sit the days through turning out meters 
and meters of the straw braid, ready for winding 
and sewing together into soft flat hats. In the Mer- 
cato Nuovo the hats are mostly of two kinds; one 
thin, and nearly transparent, made of stiff, gauze- 
like stuff, and the other thicker, heavier, made of 
braided straw. The gauzy ones can be put on top 
of the thicker ones, so that your garden hat may 
really consist of two hats, one fitting closely on top 
of the other. 

Signa has been the center of the Tuscan straw 
hat-making since very early times. But our interest 
in those early times concerns itself more with Signa's 
fighting and castle building than with her more com- 
monplace industry. As a sort of outer stronghold of 
Florence, a buffer between her and Pisa, Signa had 
more than her fair share of battling in the lively days 
of Guelph and Ghibelline. Florence got hold of 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 233 

Signa in the twelfth century, and began an intermit- 
tent castle building and fortifying. In the thirteenth 
century John Hawkwood, fighting for Pisa, captured 
Signa, and in the fourteenth century Florence lost the 
city again to the famous Lucchese leader, Castruccio 
Castracani. She soon regained it, however, only to 
have it again captured and sacked by that indefatiga- 
ble mercenary, Hawkwood. With the beginning of 
the fifteenth century Signa finally came to some de- 
gree of rest, remaining permanently in the hands of 
the Republic. 

Of the castles and fortifications built up and torn 
down, and built up again, in those earnest days, the 
most impressive remains are the great wall and gates 
of Lastra a Signa, which are, indeed, alone im- 
pressive enough to repay one for the excursion. In 
Lastra, too, is a beautiful fifteenth century loggia 
(di Sant' Antonio, under the theater), along with 
various other architectural bits of interest. In Signa 
itself (Ponte a Signa) there are some remnants of 
the old castle and fortifications on the hill or bluff 
that rises sharply above the river. And the bridge, 
several times partly destroyed and rebuilt, the last 
time in quite modern days, can serve well as a point 
d'appui for the imagination that would picture the 
moving scenes of Signa in the centuries gone. 

The road to Malmantile is uphill and winding. 
It takes off to the left just where one starts to leave 
Lastra a Signa for Ponte a Signa, and follows up 
a little stream that, in escaping from the hills, has 
cut for itself a picturesque ravine. A man in shoot- 
ing coat started up the ravine just as we did, and 



234 Outside the Walls 

it was our misfortune to have to witness his prowess 
among the poor frightened hedge-sparrows, that 
seem to be the Italian sportsman's prey. If, indeed, 
he had only been a true sportsman and kept to wing 
shots! But not at all; he used his shotgun like a 
rifle, aiming carefully at each pitiful little bunch of 
feathers huddling among the foliage. No other 
civilized country in the world, unless it be Japan, 
has been so recklessly regardless of its song-birds, 
so brutally complete in its approximate extermination 
of them. In these days, however, there is a strong 
and growing sentiment, cultivated by an energetic 
society of nature lovers, making toward preservation 
of the bird remnants. And so persistent are the 
songsters in their love of Italy's blue skies and soft 
airs, that, in spite of their centuries of persecution, 
they seem ready with the slightest encouragement to 
restock the coverts and hedge-rows and fields, and 
to make Italy the land of bird song it ought in all 
fitness to be. 

Climbing out of the ravine, our way took us up 
an open hill-slope, and, after an hour's walking, to 
Mahnantilc. It was a good day to be out, clear for 
the long views and warm for the quiet restings by 
the roadside. Some grapes were still hanging, but 
the pickers had abandoned the vineyards, so that 
all was still in them except for the few, the alto- 
gether too few, staccato bird chirps, Malmantile 
was an amazing place to enter. It was a veritable 
walled-in city, or rather not a city but the smallest 
sort of village, a hamlet of poor little houses, with 
one street, and no shops. Soon we realized that it 



San Miniato, Certosa, Signa 235 

had been originally, in truth, no fortified town, no 
walled village, but simply a great, unroofed, square 
castello — a castello all walls and wall-towers, but 
without banqueting halls and living-rooms — just a 
walled camp. The walls themselves, intact in all 
their extent, except for the two open gateways, are 
not so in their height. They have been cut off, 
broken off, at the top, for several meters. Here 
and there they are evidently nearly of their original 
height, for the expanded upper courses appear. 
They are massive, immense, and impressive. 

The hamlet they inclose is most abject — dilapi- 
dated huts, decrepit barnyard beasts, apathetic peo- 
ple. What an odd heritage of war and days of 
glory is theirs! And what a marvel of reaching 
view of distant hills and placid valley stretches they 
have from the crest of their crumbling walls ! But 
this heritage means nothing to them; this scenery of 
Umbrian hills does nothing to fill their hungry 
mouths. Want blinds their eyes to beauty and 
chokes any curiosity to know the story of past days. 
Malmantile's walls to-day are a sort of dust of 
Caesar that stops the wind away from these poor 
Tuscan sons. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE STREETS 

YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 

TO say that much of the life of a people can 
be seen in the streets of its cities is to utter 
a familiar truism. But this truism is particularly 
true of the Italian people, and even more particularly 
if the streets are those of Naples. In those crowded, 
clamorous, narrow rampc that climb steeply up from 
the Via Roma to the Corso Vittorio Emanuele there 
is little of the private life of their inhabitants that 
is left to the imagination. But no Italian city or 
town but has its characteristic and revealing streets, 
in which the people carry on openly many of their 
personal affairs. 

In Florence the streets have a very distinctive 
color and atmosphere, and expose, even to the most 
casual onlooker, much of the special character of 
the work and play of the present-day Florentines. 
But to the attentive and persistent observer they do 
even more. For there are in these streets still some 
of the echoes and subtle fragrance of the old splen- 
did days of artist, poet, warrior, and merchant noble. 
Here an old palace w'all of great blocks of rough- 

236 



The Streets 



237 



hewn stone, or a square machicolated tower; there 
a carved stone doorway or window frame, or a fan- 
tastic wrought-iron fanale 
on an angle wall, or fading 
Madonna and Child in a 
shrine in a wall niche; and 
everywhere the set-in carved 
stemmi of guild and 
noble families. All these 
architectural relics tell their 
bits of story. And if the 
observant wanderer be in- 
terested enough, and in- 
formed somewhat, he can 
make of all these bits a 
mosaic background of the 
Florentine life of yesterday, 
against the dull glow of 
whose ancient but enduring 
pigments the garish colors 
of the life-picture of to-day will both contrast and 
harmonize. 

An element in the street pictures of Florence, and 
one quite lacking in the other larger cities of Italy, 
is the bounding of almost every perspective by the 
background of green hill-side; the silvery sheen of 
breeze-swept olive orchard, the distant white spots, 
black-girdled, of villas set in cypress gardens. Flor- 
ence is not a village inclosed in a field or garden, 
but neither is it a great city that shuts out all the 
world of Nature. Its hills lift above it on every 
side, except down Arno, with their slopes starting 




A torch socket on 
ace wall. 



a pal- 



238 The Streets ' 

swiftly up from almost every point of its margin. 
Its streets all end in winding ways among these hills. 
All this puts into the street pictures of Florence some- 
thing which lends them a beauty and a character that 
is their most unforgettable part. 

And it is a part which has a significance that must 
not be overlooked in any attempt to picture old 
Florence. For these hills and gardens and villas ' 
and nearby villages had their important place in the 
life of the Florence of the Medici. How many of ■ 
these hill-slopes, and how much of this verdure, does i 
one see in the paintings and frescoes of the Floren- ■ 
tine masters? How often is Fiesole on her hill the 
village in the background? And how many of these 
very villas and gardens were the favorite homes of 
the merchant nobles and the haunts of the artists 
and poets, whose names are the chapter titles in the - 
story of old Florence? Florentine life of yesterday, 
like that of to-day, must be looked at through sun- : 
shot air against blue sky, green slopes of olive and 
grape, and overflowing gardens of rose and jas- 
mine, surrounded by the dark cypress towers of 
silence. 

It is hard to know how best to see the streets of ' 
Florence and their sights. Shall one set to work ■ 
systematically with map and guide-book in hand and - 
hunt, first of all, for relics of the old days? If so, • 
there is a little paper-covered book of a hundred I 
pages, called " Firenze Scomparsa," that will help 
much in the search for the scattered remnants of the 
Florence that is gone. This book is written by ' 
Cav. Guido Carocci, who evidently knows and loves 



The Streets 239 

his old Florence, A translation under the title of 
" Bygone Florence " has been pubHshed. 

Or shall " literary landmarks " be the first game? 
If so, Laurence Hutton's book is the standard guide. 
It is complete and interesting, and undoubtedly as 
accurate as such a book can be. 

Or, finally, shall the newest things come first? 
Shall the Florentine life of to-day, the life of the 
city Tuscans and their visitors from all the world 
first have one's eyes? If so, then there is, indeed, 
no guide but the color and hum of the streets them- 
selves to lead one to the best adventure. 

We had deserted our hill-side villino for a town 
stay one week, and took the opportunity for some 
special visits to the streets. One morning we left 
our hotel before breakfast, and went to have our 
coffee on the sidewalk in the Piazza Vittorio Emanu- 
ele. The florid new buildings surrounding the 
piazza were no less uninteresting by morning twi- 
light than they are at other times. But the life was 
very different from that more familiar, leisurely one 
of the five o'clock hour, when the cafes are full and 
overflowing. The people of early morning were all 
moving. Little red and blue and green and yellow 
carts, heaped with flowers or vegetables or fruits or 
growing plants, were following microscopic donkeys 
at all angles across the place. Most of them were 
plainly converging on the entrance to the Via Call- 
mara, which leads to the Mercato Nuovo. It was 
a Thursday morning In early November, which 
means that It was flower market time. We gulped 
our good Gambrlnus coffee, for we wanted to follow 



240 The Streets 

the carts. But hot coffee enforces a certain leisure- 
liness, and we had time to try and reconstruct back- 
wards the ugly gray stucco stretch of modernity 
along the west face of the piazza. 

It was here and near by that some of the most 
interesting part of old Florence stood. Indeed, here 
was the center of the ancient Roman city that was 
the first Florence, the Florence of twenty-five cen- 
turies ago. The forum was near the corner of Via 
degli Speziali, and near by were superb mosaic- 
floored therma?, whose vestiges can be seen now in 
the Archeological Museum. Fifteen feet below the 
present ground surface were found the old street 
pavements, with the wheel ruts still visible, and the 
relics of waterpipes, sewers, and well. 

On the ruins of Roman Florence rose medieval 
Florence. The Old Market was its center of life. 
About it were the fortress palaces of the great fami- 
lies, above which rose the forest of towers that must 
have been the most striking thing in any view of the 
Florence of that day. " Attached to the palaces and 
towers were the Moggie' (or verandas), which 
were of characteristic significance, being symbol and 
proof of the nobility and power of those families 
that owned them — they were the frame of all that 
was most brilliant and gay in the life of those days, 
and took the place of the ball-room and reception- 
room of to-day. During the balmy summer even- 
ings friends and relations met and whiled away the 
starry hours with conversations, songs, and music. 
Betrothals and marriages were discussed and ar- 
ranged in the midday hours. The May-time festi- 



The Streets 



241 



vals were celebrated here, and repasts and banquets 
freely given, the public looking on with respect. For 
constant use of the ' loggie ' by the patricians had 
rendered them almost sacred, so that they even be- 
came haunts of refuge in times of dread." (Carocci.) 
With the growth of the Old Market and the 
crowding in and about it of the Jewish vendors, the 
noble families emigrated 
and the Jews took gradual 
possession of the palaces 
and towers, making honey- 
comb of them for the hiv- 
ing of their increasing thou- 
sands. The Ghetto was 
crowded and dirty, but it 
was at least picturesque. 
What has succeeded it Is 
cleaner without doubt. It 
is also undeniably ugly. It 
may well be that cleanliness 
must have precedence of 
picturesqueness. But it was 
not necessary in order to 
establish this precedence to 
destroy with ruthless icono- 
clastic hand every trace, 
almost, of the great treas- 
ure of wall-painting, stone-carving, and sculptured 
wood that gathered in the crowded, dirtied old pal- 
aces. There was such salvage possible there as 
would have given Florence another priceless center 
of art relics. But Florence in its third period pre- 




Giovanni da 
" devil of the 
Vecchio." 



Bologna's 
Mercato 



242 



The Streets 



ferred to forget Its parent of the Renaissance and 
grandparent of the Roman emperors. 

A Httle cart came by that was carrying a veritable 
forest In miniature, and then another that seemed 
all aflame; and we followed them. The Mercato 




" The Mercato Xuovo, where the big bronze boar keeps guard." 

Nuovo, where the big bronze boar keeps guard, 
was of a bustle Indescribable. Where other days 
In the week it is a quiet market of straw hats and 
silk shawls — In winter woolen crocheted ones — on 
Thursday mornings It Is a crowded, odorous, chat- 
tering flower market. The " little people " of the 
country-side bring their little treasures of blossom 
and greenery in little carts of littlest donkeys. Each 
has a place by a column's foot, and around him he 
groups his ofterlngs : the products of his own loving 
care. It Is no big, gorgeous affair, like the Paris 
flower market, but it is an intensely human and per- 



The Streets 243 

sonal offering of beauty and affection. On this par- 
ticular morning of ours it was mostly an azalea show, 
and the dwarf bushes in pots, with their burden of 
color, were crowded as thickly as possible over all 
the floor of the great loggia. 

At noon the market takes out its luncheon and 
feeds itself. People and donkeys eat side by side. 
Indeed, the public lunching of the common people 
is one of the characteristic street scenes of Florence. 
In the Piazza del Duomo we saw one day a delight- 
ful lunch party, sitting and kneeling about a scarlet 
horse-blanket spread out on the street pavement. 
Cabby's wife had brought the lunch basket and had 
emptied it on the scarlet cloth under the warm sun of 
noon. On one corner of the cloth was carefully 
placed cabby's shabby top hat; on another the bottle 
of red wine, while the bread and cheese arranged 
themselves conveniently to the hands of cabby, 
cabby's wife and little girl, and cabby's horse-feeder. 
Over their heads the gaunt cab horse, crested with the 
cock's feathers that keep off the evil eye, swung his 
great nose bag, from which he munched his own 
luncheon of hay. 

The feeding and watering of the horses and wash- 
ing of the cabs are an affair that gives special employ- 
ment to three or four boys or men at each cab rank. 
Each has a little pile of hay, and a water-pail, easily 
refilled from the nearest street fountain. As the cabs 
drive up for their noon rest they are at once taken 
possession of by these thrifty lads, who earn a few 
sous from each lordly driver sitting aloft, while his 
horse and vehicle are cared for. 



244 The Streets 

All manner of Florentines eat in the street. It 
is like the four o'clock pains chauds habit of the 
Parisians. There are booths, where all day long 
in the autumn especially, hot chestnuts, hot boiled 
potatoes, or cornmeal cakes dropped into boiling oil, 
are vended. Hot doughnuts, two for three soldi, 
and waffles and segments cut out of flat, thin, brown 
chestnut pies, two feet in diameter, are in great de- 
mand. In the shops at noon everybody is munch- 
ing. Sometimes they retire to a back room, but 
as often not. In the dark caverns of carbone shops, 
into which the hindered daylight comes only enough 
to distinguish moving blackness from stationary 
blackness, I have seen the coaled imps cramming 
down their smudgy bread and cheese with a most 
cheerful disregard for the mineral condiment. And 
it was always fascinating to watch a whole wood- 
working shop at luncheon — a happy, chafling com- 
pany of master workmen and apprentices squatting 
together in the shavings. 

At noon, too, one sees most abundantly the little 
baskets going up and down from street to windows, 
high up in the tower-like tenements, bearing eggs, 
bread, snails, bottles of wine, a newspaper, anything, 
indeed. 

The streets are busiest, of course, in certain places 
and at certain times. On Fridays the Piazza 
Signoria and adjoining streets (Via Calzalaio, Via 
della Condotta, Via dei Lamberti) are filled with 
violently talking and gesticulating men. They are 
traders, mostly from the nearby country and vil- 
lages, and this is a sort of weekly curb exchange. 



The Streets 



245 



In winter-time many of these traders carry green 
umbrellas, and wear heavy terra-cotta colored coats, 
with wide fur collars and cuffs — a striking sort of 
uniform of the soil. They strike hands over a 
completed trade, and crowd into Paoli's and Lapi's 




Housetops and chimney-pots. 

restaurants to further seal their agreements over 
good wine and food. 

Every fine afternoon, and especially Sundays, the 
Lung' Arno from Ponte Santa Trinita to the Cascine, 
and the park itself, are crowded with the carriages 
of the aristocrats. There is also a plentiful sprin- 
kling always of the hired cabs of the simpler citizens 
and tourists. It is the Florentine Corso. 

The reference to the tourists suggests a feature 
of modern Florentine life that can by no means be 
overlooked — even by the tourist himself. Florence 
is enormously visited. And being a city of only 
moderate size, this visitation is readily apparent. 



246 The Streets 

There are three distinct tourist seasons connected 
by httle parties of irregulars that come dropping 
in all through the year. The old idea that Italy in 
summer is simply a hot, steamy pest-hole of malaria 
and misery has been largely dissipated, thanks to 
modern science and the safe-returning of a number 
of summer-vacationing teachers. In fact, summer 
is now a special tourist season — a season largely of 
caravans of women school-teachers, who do not in- 
terest the shopkeepers of the Ponte Vecchio and 
Lung' Arno much. And yet they make alto- 
gether a good many two-lire purchases. But the 
big shops are mostly closed; the shopkeepers, 
and much of the shop stuff, spend the summer in 
Lucerne. 

The principal tourist season is that of the early 
spring. Then the Via Tornabuoni and the hotel and 
pension district, along the Arno clear down to the 
Cascine, is one procession and murmur of familiar 
faces and nasal " all rights." Then the shops do 
business. 

Again, in the autumn there is a reinvasion. So 
many tourists come south for the winter — Florence, 
Siena, Rome, all have their full Anglo-American 
winter colonies. And the growing custom of going 
to Europe by the northern steamers and coming 
home by the southern ones (Genoa, Naples), or 
vice versa, gives Italy its full share now of the whole 
great host of annual American visitors. 

One summer afternoon at the Gambrlnus, when 
the sun and siesta were having their way with most, 
we were roused from our own half-dozing dawdling 



The Streets 247 

over our after-luncheon coffee by a whirl of the 
piazza pigeons, and then the fluttering down near 
us of seven little school-teachers, each with a serious 
face, a small camp-stool, and a guide-book. They 
had made a triumphant morning, but now the 
churches were closed on them, and hunger and ex- 
haustion could be reckoned with. How hard they 
were taking it, and how absolutely faithfully to their 
red-backed taskmaster ! But how happily, and with 
what a realizing sense of dreams come true ! The 
summer represented the saving and planning of 
years; every day, every hour, must make its rich 
repayment. Their chirpings and bobbings to the 
quick-witted, politely impertinent waiter, their gur- 
glings over the cool Italian sorbetti, their intense 
adding and counting of the soldi, their grudging but 
over-generous determination of the tips, and their 
final swift scurrying off with waving camp-stools, and 
guide-books — it was all the perfectness of how we 
do it. 

But if we are good seeing for the Italians, so are 
they for us. 

A day and evening of festa, with the spectacular 
Masses in the churches, the processions in the streets, 
and the fireworks at night from Ponte Carraja or 
San Miniato hill, and a big band concert under all 
the silent, stone Florentine notables in the Court of 
Honor of the Uffizi — that is all good seeing. The 
festa of San Giovanni Battista, which I have told 
something of in another chapter, is the biggest of 
all the religious festivals — unless it is that Saturday 
before Easter, when the dove issues from the Duomo 



248 The Streets 

and lights the fireworks car from the sacred PazzI 
fire. 

At 8.30 in the morning of this day there is Mass 
and communion at Santi Apostoli, after which comes 
the striking together of the sacred stones, supposed 
to have been brought by a Pazzi from the Holy 
Land. Priests and choir boys were greatly excited 
during the performance we saw, although there was 
no particular ritual about it. The stones were simply 
rubbed together by a priest until a little flame came; 
then two candles were lighted from this flame, and 
were placed in closed lanterns, which were carried 
in solemn procession through the streets to the 
Duomo. Any person might stop the procession to 
light his candle, join it, and give lights to others. 
The procession entered through the large portal, and 
the two candles in the lanterns were blessed at the 
first, holy water font at the right of the entrance. 
The large candles of the Duomo's altar were then 
lighted from the little lanterns, and High Mass was 
said by the Archbishop of Florence. At noon ex- 
actly, the dove lighted by a sacred candle was sent 
sliding along a wire from the altar to the fireworks 
car outside the main portal. The car had been 
dragged in that morning from the Porto Prato by 
four white oxen. As the flaming dove touched the 
fuse in the car the fireworks began to explode. It 
was then dragged to the densely crowded Piazza 
Vittorio Emanuele, where it was surrounded and 
acclaimed by the multitude and more fireworks were 
set off. All the people of the city attend this cele- 
bration — a very good-natured, although excited, 



The Streets 249 

crowd. The inevitable accident came last year, 
when a little girl and a woman were killed and sev- 
eral others were wounded by the fireworks in the 
Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. This may mean some 
modification of the celebration for the future. 

The festa of San Lorenzo is celebrated chiefly by 
a High Mass in San Lorenzo church and a " free 
day " for the new sacristy and Medici chapel. It 
results in a rabble and rout all through and about 
the church. It is the most perfunctory and irrever- 
ent religious performance that Florence has annually 
to offer. 

Of secular festivals, one of the best observed is 
the 20th of September, the anniversary of the storm- 
ing of the Porta Pia at Rome and the consequent 
uniting of all Italy, The streets are crowded all 
day, and bells ring with great enthusiasm for morn- 
ing, noon, and evening. A curious sort of free-for- 
all running race takes place. Sixty-nine young men 
made the race when we saw it. It is sport for all, 
the sort of thing some of us Americans, sick of our 
over-trained, over-glorified, club and collegiate ath- 
letics are crying aloud for. But there is another side 
of it. Here are soft shop clerks, weak-hearted ofl&ce 
men, without any preparation or preliminary physical 
examination, running their hearts out in one single 
annual violent over-exertion. Still Italy's Pietro 
Dorando, the baker's assistant, Marathon wonder of 
1908, is a graduate of this sort of athletic school. 

We had one day a festa in our own village, 
Settignano. The singing club of the town, the Phil- 
harmonica, took advantage of some convenient minor 



250 The Streets \ 

church festival to institute a festa, whose receipts 
shouldgo to getting new uniforms for the club. There 
was an exhibition of marble- and stone-cutting in the 
daytime, with singing by the club, and in the evening ' 
grand illumination of the main street and church 1 
piazza by hundreds of little red and yellow lamps, ^ 
that were simply small jelly tumblers of oil with 
floating wicks. The street buzzed with Settignanesc 
and contadini families from the poderi round about. 
There were hot waffles for a soldo each; and tiny < 
cornucopias of sorbetto for another soldo. The band | 
played, the Philharmonica sang, and at the end there 
were very good fireworks. The Italians go in for : 
fireworks. They make most ingenious rockets and ] 
candles and mines, and set pieces of much intricacy, ^ 
and they let them off with good judgment. ' 

Outside of festa days Florence is not particularly I 
animated at night. There are band concerts in the 
piazzas, to be sure, and always a lively crowd at 
the Gambrinus, where a feeble orchestra plays, j 
There is not very much attraction for foreigners in ^ 
the way of play and opera. Italy, with all its sing- 1 
ing, does not support good concert and opera houses , 
with anything like the generosity of the Germans 
and Parisians. Moving picture shows and cheap 
vaude\ille do better. 

In Florence the two or three theaters are open ^ 
irregularly, depending on traveling companies of 
players or singers to fill them occasionally for a few ' 
weeks at a time. The custom still prevails of get- , 
ting two separate tickets, at two separate prices, for ) 
one's admission and seat. Except when an unusual 



The Streets 251 

artist is playing or singing the prices are low. The 
audience Is more likely to be made up of middle-class 
and artisans than of aristocrats, except when some 
special performance Is worked up as a social occa- 
sion. Then there is grand opera dressing, and a 
good deal of fuss and feathers generally. Other 
times the people stroll in in street costume, smoke 
between acts, and enjoy themselves naturally. They 
hiss the villain — one night in Roberto Bracco's 
patriotic " Romantkismo " they would hardly let him 
finish his praise of Austria — and they call aloud to 
the tenor or soprano as he or she reaches the high 
note. The bravos Invariably drown the climax. 
But you can always see a climax in an Italian theater, 
even if you can't hear It. 

Along the Arno line of hotels two or three bands 
of street singers with guitars and mandolins make 
their pilgrimages every night. Each has a male 
falsetto singer. One of these falsettos in particular 
has become known to thousands of tourists for his 
extraordinary woman's voice. You wrap up a few 
soldi In white paper and drop them from your win- 
dow into the street. 

Late at night, when all else Is still, you begin to 
realize how many clock towers there are in Florence. 
Eighty-four strokes of varied loudness and tone are 
a few more than is necessary to announce midnight. 
But a resident in almost any Arno hotel can hear 
the hours from seven different towers. 

Almost all the rambling notes of this chapter so 
far have been of Florence to-day. However, most 
of the rest of the book tells of finding the bequests 



2^2 The Streets 

and relics of her yesterdays. But almost nowhere in 
it have I set down as yet any " literary landmarks," 
none, that is, of post-Renaissance litterateurs. This 
has been done once for all by Laurence Hutton, and 
it is to him that one must go for real guidance. Just 
by way of lending point to this recommendation, I 
confess to filching from him half of the following 
score of finger-posts. 

Of Florentines, Dante lived (perhaps!) in No. 2, 
Via San Martino, near the Duomo. And he 
sat (perhaps!) on the forerunner of the now 
modernized " Dante seat " of the Piazza del 
Duomo. 

Savonarola preached in the Duomo and the church 
of San Marco. He lived in San Marco monastery; 
was imprisoned in the Palazzo Vecchio; spent his 
last night in the Hall of the Consiglio (Sala dei 
Cinque Centi) ; and was hanged and burned at the 
spot in the Piazza della Signoria now marked by a 
plate. 

Michelangelo was nursed in the Villa Buonarotti 
(near Settignano), and had for study the closet-room 
now shown in his house on the Via Ghibellina. 

Galileo lived for some years in No. 3, Costa San 
Giorgio (south side of Arno). He died at No. 
23, Via del Piano di Giullare, the Villa Galileo. 
Milton visited him here in 1638, and probably again 
in 1639. 

Machiavelli lived and died in No. 16, Via Guic- 
ciardini, on the south side of Arno, near the Ponte 
Vecchio. Opposite Machiavelli's house is that of the 
famous historian, Francesco Guicciardini. 



The Streets 253 

Alfierl lived and died in the Palazzo Masetti, No. 
2, Lung' Arno Corsini, near Ponte Santa Trinita. 

Amerigo Vespucci was born and lived in the house 
at No, 18, Borgo Ognissanti, now occupied by a 
hospital founded by him. 

Among the famous temporary or permanent lit- 
erary expatriates who have landmarks in Florence, 
the Brownings lived in Casa Guidi, in the Piazza 
Santa Felicita (corner Via Maggio, near south end 
of Ponte Vecchio). Mrs. Browning wrote "Casa 
Guidi Windows" and "Aurora Leigh" here; and 
died in this house in 1861. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne came to Florence in May, 
1858, and lived first in Casa Bella, No. 124, Via de' 
Serragli (near the Torrigiani Gardens). In Au- 
gust he moved out to Villa Montaiito, on Bellos- 
guardo. 

George Eliot and George Lewes came in May, 
i860, and lived first in the Pension Suisse, No. 13, 
Via Tornabuoni. 

T. A. Trollope and mother came in 1843, ^^^ 
lived in a house next to the east end of Santa Croce 
church. Later, after marrying Theodosia Garrow 
in 1848, Trollope moved to the Villa Trollope on 
the Piazza Indipendenza (now a well-known pen- 
sion, that makes much of the building's literary asso- 
ciations). After the death of his wife, Trollope 
moved to No. 41, Via del Ponte a Ema, out beyond 
Porto San Niccolo. 

Walter Savage Landor lived for years in Villa 
Landor, bought by him in 1829. He entertained 
many English literary men in this handsome villa 



254 The Streets 

on the Fiesolean hill-side. After his death it was 
bought by Professor Willard Fiske, the Dante 
scholar and collector. Landor died (1864), "ot 
in the villa, but in poor quarters at No. 93, Via della 
Chiesa. 

Mrs. Jameson made many visits to Florence, and 
in 1857 seemed to be living in No. 92, Via Maggio. 

Dickens described, in 1845, looking down on 
Florence and the villas from Fiesole; probably from 
the low-walled terrace just below the Franciscan con- 
vent. 

Fcnimore Cooper was in Florence in 1837-38, but 
his residence is not known. 

Charles Lever came in 1847 ^"^ lived several 
years in Villa San Leonardo, on Via San Leonardo, 
beyond Porta San Giorgio. 

Lowell lived in Casa Guidi for some time, and 
later ( 1874) he stayed a little while in the Hotel del 
Nord. 

Bryant stayed at the Hotel New York in 1858. 

Thomas Gray and Horace Walpole visited Sir 
Horace Mann in 1739-40 probably on the Lung' 
Arno, between the Ponte Vecchio and the Ponte Santa 
Trinita. 

Smollett, in 1765, "lodged at Widow Vinini's on 
Arno." 

Byron was in Florence one day in 18 17, his first 
visit, and again for a short time in 1821 with Samuel 
Rogers. He left no footprints. 

Leigh Hunt came to Florence in 1827 and stayed 
at No. 2 or 4 in Via delle Belle Donne (near Via 
Tornabuoni), and later in the Piazza Santa Croce, 



The Streets 255 

in the corner house (Nos. 14 to 17), on the left 
side of it, next the church. He later went out to 
Maiano to live, and here Hazlitt visited him. 

Longfellow lived, in 1828, in a house on the 
Piazza Santa Maria Novella, close to the church. 
In 1868 he lived on Lung' Arno, near the Ponte 
Vecchio. 

Mark Twain lived, in 1892-93, in the Villa Vivi- 
ani, near Settignano. He finished " Pudd'nhead 
Wilson " here. 

In the English cemetery are buried Mrs. Brown- 
ing, Landor, A. H. Clough, Theodore Parker, and 
both of Trollope's wives. 

As one wanders the streets in search of these 
houses where men and women of note have lived, the 
eyes will continually fasten on interesting things. 
One will note the Dante inscriptions put up every- 
where over the city; the Michelangelo "kneeling 
windows " with their graceful outward curve of flat 
iron bars that let the inmates survey all the street 
up and down and underneath them. Swift glimpses 
through great iron gates reveal the luxuriant court- 
yards within great houses, and high overhead green 
branches peer over>'the roofs from the house-top gar- 
dens. 

Old Florence, too, will be catching the eyes often 
by means of an old carved portal or worn window- 
casing, a wall angle oratorio, or a wrought-iron 
fanale or torch socket. And oftenest of all, by 
the coats-of-arms, or stemmi, carved in stone and 
set into the house-walls over entrances, or high 
up under the eaves, or more conspicuously on the 



256 



The Streets 



wall angles. In the cloister arcades of San Marco 
monastery, or in the rooms of the Archeological Mu- 
seum in Via della Colonna, one can get acquainted 
with the stemmi of the guilds and the great Flor- 
entine families; the balls of the Medici, the three 
daggers of the Rucellai, the rearing lion of the Du- 
v^anzatl, the bees of the Pazzi, the great hound 
creature of the Altoviti, and all the rest. With 
this knowledge one can go into the streets and people 
palace after palace and house after house with the 
families of Old Florence. 

Everywhere the six (or more or fewer) balls of 
the Medici appear. In 
fact, the more you see of 
Florence, the more you see 
the mark of the Medici 
over it all. They seem to 
have lived in every house 
of note; or to have built it 
or burnt it or done some- 
thing to it. Over the whole 
city flits the haunting ghost 
of this extraordinary fam- 
ily. I say " ghost " of the 
family, for it is only with 
some study that certain in- 
dividuals of it come to dis- 
sociate themselves as par- 
ticular personalities. Co- 
simo the Elder, Lorenzo 
the Magnificent: these names and others come in 
time to stand out. But for the most part it is simply 




" Everywhere the six balls 
of the Medici appear." 



The Streets 257 

"the Medici"; the church of the Medici, the villa 
of the Medici, the palace of the Medici. An extraor- 
dinary family truly, but a no less extraordinary 
people and extraordinary time that could permit a 
single family without divine right of royalty or even 
right of official recognition, without power of name 
or office or heredity, to hold in Its grip for two 
centuries almost the first city of Italy. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
FLORENTINE SHOPS AND SHOPPING 

IT must be a very near-sighted man and a quite 
blind woman who can pass unnoticing the shops 
of Florence, even in the exaltation of hurrying from 
gallery to church. And it is a matter of high proba- 
bility that among the visitors to Florence there is 
not a single blind woman, even though there may 
be a few men of limited vision. The shops once 
seen are easily entered, but once entered are not 
easily escaped from. For some of the best sights 
of the city are to be found in precisely these small 
private collections, where the labels of the objects, in 
curious numerical cryptograms, seem to hold the ob- 
server with an interest only less rapt than that 
claimed by the curios themselves. 

In this briefest of accounts of Florentine shopping, 
I shall not try to tell of such delightful shop scenes 
as that afforded us one day when we had taken ref- 
uge from a shower in a small hole-in-the-wall place, 
where we sat on little green-bottomed chairs, having 
small drinks at three soldi the glass. It was on a 
crowded street of the piccoli popolani, and there 
went on all during our stay a constant traffic in 
single candles, matches, cigarettes by twos and threes, 
long thin cigars by ones, and even halves (!), be- 

258 



Florentine Shops and Shopping 259 

sides the small drinks already mentioned. The sums 
exchanged for these commodities varied from one 
centesimo to fifteen (from a fifth of one to three 
whole cents !) . 

Such shops afford a lively entertainment to any 
one interested in people, but less to one interested 
in things. But of the jewelry shops of the Ponte 
Vecchio, the antiquity shops of the Via dei Fossi, 
the silversmiths of the Borgo San Jacopo, the wood- 
carving and leather-working places of the Via Guic- 
ciardini there is no question of lack of interest. 
While the lace and embroidery shops of the Lung' 
Arno and Borg' Ognissanti, the dark abodes of old 
brass lamps and copper pots in the Via Maggio, 
and the straw hat booths in the Mercato Nuovo, 
offer attractions which vie only too strongly for many 
with the Ufiizi and Pitti, with tomb-lined Santa 
Croce and memory-haunted San Marco. 

However, the temporary Florentine should find 
time — and undoubtedly will — for both pure art and 
applied art, for both culture and a not unworthy 
covetousness. For Florence offers to wise shoppers 
opportunities for the purchase of certain things at 
marked advantage. And some of these opportuni- 
ties make such surprisingly small demands on the 
purse that even the most conscientious $4-a-day tour- 
ist can find place for them in his carefully guarded 
accounts list. 

I am not particularly acquainted with the statis- 
tics of Florence's business affairs, but I very much 
doubt that she has any more important " principal ex- 
ports " than the accumulations of old coppers and 



26o Florentine Shops and Shopping 

brasses, hammered silver teapots, tooled leather port- 
folios, embroidered gowns, and " antique " furniture 
and jewelry, that find their way to America as " per- 
sonal effects and worn clothing " in the straining 
trunks of the returning tourists. If there is anything 
more wonderful in Florence than her immense rich- 
ness in treasures of painting and sculpture, architec- 
ture and history, it is her immense accumulation of 
" antiquities " for sale to the passing guest. Whole 
streets are given up to the antiquity shops, hardly any 
street but has a few, and then, after you have been 
thoroughly amazed and dismayed by this surplusage, 
you are simply stupefied to be led by some resident 
who knows, up flights of stairs into dark rooms, 
unadvertised and invisible to the uninitiated, with 
still other masses of material. Where did it all come 
from? Where does it all come from? Did the 
tre-quattro-cinquecento world ever really use all this 
ornament and bizarrerie? 

Well, in truth, probably not! Much of this an- 
tiquity is but relative. Some of it dates, too likely, 
from day before yesterday. Worn holes in the 
picture frames, a Byzantine outlandishness in the 
pattern of this necklace, verdigris on the brass, the 
Silurian appearance of these terra-cottas, are not in 
themselves indubitable evidences of the absolute veri- 
ties. And the glib " trecentos " or " cinquecentos " 
of the polite possessors of all these treasures are 
no more so. The Via dei Fossi is only too likely 
to be a " way of ditches " for the enthusiastic but 
inexpert adventurer into its fastnesses. And the 
good old tale of the Ponte Vecchio's unvarying 



Florentine Shops and Shopping 261 

truthfulness has become changed into a more mod- 
ern one of too nearly opposite complexion. 

But all this is not to say that there are not antique 
antiquities in the antichita shops; for there are. All 
that is necessary is to know the difference between 
ancient and modern antiquity, and to know how to 
bring the price of what you want within the measure 
of your capacity to pay. Do not be ashamed to 
bargain; indeed, be ashamed not to, for otherwise 
one will regularly pay more than the dealer expects. 
Much of the modern antiquity is quite as worth one's 
interest and money as the ancient. The present-day 
expert making, after antique designs, of all sorts of 
furniture, picture frames, metal and wooden bric-a- 
brac, and especially settings for jewels, allows one to 
possess all the beauty and grace of the Renaissance 
patterns for a tithe of the money necessary to own 
the original. 

But there are other good shopping opportunities 
in Florence besides those in the antiquity shops. For 
example, in the modern wood-carving, leather-tool- 
ing, and silver-working rooms, and in the shops of 
modern jewelry, and of laces and embroidered linens. 
And there are some few special products, such as 
the Bondi hard terra-cottas and the Cantigalli and 
Ginorl majolicas, that merit attention from the 
house-furnishing shopper. One of the conspicuous 
advantages in connection with all these is the possi- 
bility of having work done to order after your own 
special design or general fancy, for about the same 
prices as the stock goods. The silver-workers will 
execute with enthusiasm, if not with great speed, any 



262 Florentine Shops and Shopping 

commission you may assign them, and the work will 
satisfy you. If it doesn't at first, it will be done 
over and over again with unvarying politeness and 
apparent delight, until you get just what you want. 
And this is as true of the workers in patterned 
leather and the wood-carvers. I wanted a pair of 
bellows for the fire-place in a seaside bungalow. 
And the notion seized me of having their wooden 
sides decorated with carved sea-horses. So I asked 
our favorite wood-worker of the Via Guicciardini if 
I could have this fancy carried out. 

" But, certainly, if, that is, you will tell me what 
a horse of the sea is." 

My description raised doubts of what a sea-horse 
really looked like, but not at all of Giorgio's being 
able to produce a ritratto (portrait) in wood, if 
only the monster would be visualised. I made a 
little sketch; still doubts. That was all I could do 
for the day. A few days later I went back. And, 
lo, a pair of bellows with sea-horses in relief, and 
of an accuracy that both astonished and more than 
pleased me. The very fin-rays were numbered to 
the actuality. An authority could have named the 
species. How had it been done? 

The explanation, given with warrantable pride and 
enthusiasm, was this: My wood-worker had gone 
first to the public library and there demanded books 
of the sea-horses. They were few, and as he 
perused them and hunted for portraits, unsatisfac- 
tory. Per Dio, what to do? A thought of genius! 
he would go to the Museum of Natural History 
and demand sight of the monster cavallo del mar. 



Florentine Shops and Shopping 263 

To the interested and kindly professor he explained 
his dilemma, and this heart of gold came to his 
rescue by placing in his grateful hands a veritable 
sea-horse, which he should accept as a loan to take 
to his shop and keep before him as he modeled the 
ritratto in wood. And the sparkling-eyed old man 
carefully opened a little box and revealed to my eyes 
the dried form of a mummified sea-horse reposing 
on a bed of cotton-wool. As I paid over my eleven 
francs for the bellows — one franc more than the 
agreed-on price, because of the slight trouble in get- 
ting the ritratto of an accuracy — I wondered how 
quickly I should get hardened again to the somewhat 
different conditions in my own land. 

As one walks along the Lung' Arno Acciajuoli in 
the growing twilight there shine out more and more 
clearly across the river the leaping lights from the 
little furnaces of the silver-workers of the Borgo 
San Jacopo. All along that most picturesque stretch 
of old houses on the river's verge, from Ponte Vec- 
chio to Ponte Santa Trinita, the dancmg little flames 
flare up and down, while clustered thickly about 
them are the long-aproned workmen. The shop 
fronts are on the street next to the river, and for 
shops they are most primitive and displayless. You 
step inside, and a workman lays aside his blowpipe 
or lifts from over his polishing and hears your wants. 
There are a few heaping trays of rings, spoons, 
stick-pins, and the like. In a shallow wall-case there 
are some miscellaneous larger things. But mostly 
they expect to make you what you want, when and 
as you want it. You select your stones from the 



264 Florentine Shops and Shopping 

little piles put before you, find something near the 
pattern of setting you wish, or sketch it, or describe 
it to the quick-witted workman, and with a last look 
at the fascinating table of flames and deft hands 
and intent eyes, you are out with much bowing and 
kindly farewells. Your work will all be done by 
hand at that same crowded table. You may come 
and see it under way if you like, and if it isn't done 
quite to your satisfaction, the ever-polite, smiling 
master of the shop will be the first to suggest doing 
it all over again. And when finally one of the long- 
aproned workmen, bare-headed and breathless, 
brings it to you in your hotel or pension, with the 
bill and the little present of a Florence lily silver 
stick-pin stuck through it, you will be almost cer- 
tainly well-satisfied with the work and the bill. 

The more pretentious silver and gold smithing 
shops are on the Ponte Vecchio, or along the Lung' 
Arno, and scatteringly elsewhere. And all offer rare 
opportunities to those who know what they want, and 
something of how much what they want can be 
made for. Silver teapots and cream jugs, sugar 
bowls and cake plates, silver pitchers, carafes, bas- 
kets, and what not are made in soft hammered sil- 
ver, all the work done by hand slowly and lovingly. 

It is on the Ponte Vecchio, too, and along the 
Lung' Arno that the old jewelry and the new jewelry 
in old designs mostly are. Here are uncounted 
thousands of uncut stones, and occasional won- 
der toys like that perfect little Ponte Vecchio bird 
with moving Ivory bill, bobbing head, and flutter- 
ings wings, all covered with tiny bits of iridescent 



Florentine Shops and Shopping 265 

humming-bird feathers, that pops out of a bejeweled 
gold and silver box and sings to you whenever you 
spring the cover. Copies of most elaborate antique 
chains and collars, hair ornaments and bracelets, and 
the rest, are shown, and to one who knows some- 
thing of stones and workmanship there are oppor- 



1 ';v'"'A~7^i^^''^ 




On the Ponte Vecchio. 

tunities to buy the best work of this kind to be got 
anywhere. 

Less expensive than jewelry, but no less attractive 
to some eyes, will be the leather and parchment work 
of the little shops in the Via Guicciardini and else- 
where; book bindings, jewel boxes, card cases, photo- 
graph frames, smoking sets, menu and place cards 
for the table, and a score of other things in beautiful 
gilt or colored designs on colored leathers or dull 
white parchment. Here again, as in the wood-carv- 



266 Florentine Shops and Shopping 

ing and silver-working shops, your own designs, your 
monogram or crest, your wildest fancies, will be sub- 
stituted gladly for the stock patterns. It is a kind 
of shopping in which you do more than choose; you 
contrive, you plan and design, and deft, skilled hands 
make your fancies real. 

The old furniture and picture frames, for which 
Florence is famous, exhibit themselves everywhere 
in the city. The shops are especially good and 
abundant, perhaps, In the Via Magglo, the Borg' 
Ognlssanti, the Via Gulcclardini, and on the Lung' 
Arno, the favorite tourist shopping quarter. Here, 
too, as in the more general antiquity shops, one needs 
to know something of the relative value of age. 
Unless he be a collector he should unhesitatingly say 
that he cares nothing for the centuries, but every- 
thing for design and quality, for beauty and service- 
ableness, and buy on that basis alone. 

Copper pots In a score of shapes, tall brass olive 
oil lamps, and a hundred curious kinds of metal 
pieces, candle-sticks, sword-hilts, and snuff-boxes, 
thrust themselves insistently on the eye in all the 
tourist-frequented streets of the river quarters, and 
in many unexpected places besides. Away out by 
the Porta Romana are a few very good shops of 
this guise. Copper pots and brass lamps appeal to 
very slender purses, indeed. Five francs will 
get a good pot or a really tall lamp. Five 
dollars judiciously expended In this line will do 
wonders. 

The two photograph shops whose wares will in- 
evitably form part of the tourist's purchases, are 



Florentine Shops and Shopping 267 

Alinari's (No. i, Via Strozzi) and Brogi's (No. i, 
Via Tornabuoni) . 

Few women escape the irresistible appeal of the 
shops of laces and embroideries. And it would be 
a pity to do so. For the opportunities are excep- 
tional. The work is admirable, the prices wholly 
within reason. As much cannot be said for silks 
and ostrich feathers, which can be got to better ad- 
vantage in Paris. Nor is Florence the place to get 
furs. But hand-embroidered linen, batiste gowns, 
blouses, all lovely filet and embroidered things for 
the table, and Italian laces in every shape, are per- 
haps better bargains In Florence than anywhere in 
Europe. The work is different from that done in 
Switzerland or France, of course, but In its own way 
is unexcelled. Much of the revival of the lace in- 
dustry in Italy Is due to the initiative and encourage- 
ment of the Queen Mother Margherlta, as indeed 
are many other new beginnings in long-neglected 
phases of Italian art or industry. 

In shopping In Italy, as In all Europe for that 
matter, a little attention will soon reveal to one that 
the " bargains " are mostly In labor, not in material. 
It Is the cheapness of human labor that makes 
Europe cheap, where it is cheap. The wood for 
the furniture, the cloth for the gowns, the gold and 
silver for the jewelry, the food for eating, are all 
about as costly as with us in America; but the handi- 
work and time, the long hours of skilled or unskilled 
labor are immensely cheaper. The one thing of 
which there is plenty in Europe, the thing of which 
the market is over full, is human labor and human 



268 Florentine Shops and Shopping 

skill. For one-half the wages of the American cook 
alone, we had in our villa the devoted and perfect 
service of cook, maid, and gardener! And this 
could be almost true of Berlin or Paris. Certainly 
the German or the French cook and maid would be 
paid together less, and would work harder and give 
a more helpful service than the single servant at 
home. The postman who brings our letters gets 
seven dollars a month. The conductor on our tram 
to Florence gets fifty cents a day, and has to make 
good all losses from bad money received. A day 
laborer in the village gets sixty cents a day without 
food, or forty cents with food. And so in the shops 
of the dressmakers, the silversmiths, and the wood 
and leather workers; the bargain to the American 
shopper in Europe comes from the low wage of the 
workers. It comes, too, of course, from the skill 
and perfection of the handicraft and from the artis- 
tic tradition of the centuries that reveals itself in the 
taste and fancy of the designer. The American shop- 
per in Florence is getting bargains in human service 
and human capacity. 



CHAPTER XIX 
HARVEST TIMES 

IN the last week of June most of the fireflies go, 
and the cicale begin to sing. This means that 
the time has come to cut the grain. Perhaps the un- 
mistakable ripening of the fields might serve as well 
to call for the harvester, but as between the two, let 
us choose the first guide. It is more in the Italian 
spirit. 

All the tillable country about Florence that is not 
built on by villas or given over to the flower-gardens, 
or devoted to walled-in roadways, is grain-field. 
Grain-field not alone though, but olive and pear and 
peach and fig orchard, mulberry plantation, vine- 
yard and garden of wild flowers all in one. From 
tree to tree the grapevines loop their lines that cling 
to the trunks and spread out over the branches, while 
underneath them sprout and grow and seed the spears 
of grain. And among the grain red poppies and 
wandering crimson clover fleck the green and brown- 
ing fields with fire. Along the straggling low walls 
that bound and hold up the terraced field-plots yel- 
low broom and goldenrod lift their glowing blos- 
soms above the standing grain. 

The sun shines unobscured all day long now; only 
soft wispy tresses or scattered curls of white cloud 

269 



2/0 Harvest Times 

come into the sky, that each day takes on more un- 
mistakably the Itahan bkie that poets sing. It is 
time for the men to come and cut. The cicale call 
them from early morning to full dusk; the whole 
air is shrill and vibrant with the incessant rasping 
reiteration of their song. Across this fugue of the 
cicala, and into it, are woven the short and varied 
measures of other insects, the little grylli on the dry 
ground, the white crickets and green locusts in the 
trees. And there is also the call of the tree-toad 
and the chirping song of sparrows. But dominating 
and outlasting all is the cicale chorus; so unbroken, 
so universal, so evenly loud and monotonous that 
one almost forgets it, indeed, really does sometimes, 
and hears clearly and undisturbed the lesser cries 
of the other field things. I remember once standing 
by the ocean trying to talk with an old man, who 
lived in solitude in a hut on a great cliff against which 
the surge of the Pacific beat all day and night. I 
shouted and gesticulated myself weary. Finally, I 
asked how he could bear it to live all his hours in 
this welter of noise. 

"What noise?" was his innocent question. 

When the men come out to cut the grain one 
notices first of all that they mostly are not men, but 
women and children. Probably we did not expect 
to see the great machines we are used to in Cali- 
fornia, with their twenty-two horses in two long 
lines abreast, the driver, perched on his high seat 
at the end of the slender pole reaching out over their 
backs, bobbing up and down like a kingbird on a 
wind-tossed spray of apple. We did not, of course, 



Harvest Times 271 

really expect to see such a machine monster drive 
into the Settignano fields and through them, cutting, 
threshing, and dropping the grain behind it in neatly 
sewn-up sacks. But neither did we expect to see 
the grain crop of Italy harvested by hand with small 
curved sickles. 

As they stoop, these men and women and children, 
and cut, and cut, and cut, they gather the fallen 
spears into little wisps, which they tie around with 
grass-stems and lay in leaning groups against the 
tree-trunks, or put into the crotches, to air and cure. 
As the days pass the wisps grow in number, and the 
feet of the trees are all clustered round or their 
arms all filled by the little brown bundles, while 
fewer and fewer stand the grain stems in the field. 
And after two or three weeks have gone by of begin- 
ning at daylight and finishing at twilight, of bending 
over and cutting and wisping and tying, the little 
bundles are all made, and are gathered and taken 
to the aja, the stone or cement threshing floor by 
the barn. 

Here begins the most primitive and most pictur- 
esque part of all the harvesting. The men seize 
the wisps one at a time and beat their grain-filled 
ends violently against the aja floor, or against a 
stone bench or block, until most of the grains have 
flown out. Then the women and children take the 
wisps in hand and go on with the beating; or put- 
ting them down on the floor, strike them with sticks 
until every least seed is garnered. Or at the begin- 
ning the wisps are untied and the grain stems spread 
in a loose layer five or six inches thick over the 



272 



Harvest Times 



center of the stone floor, and then the men and 
women, standing side by side, beat rhythmically with 
flails for hours together, chatting or singing a stor- 
nello as they work. After the grain is thus beaten 
out the straw is gathered up and piled in neat cocks 
about central standing poles, while the grain and 
refuse on the aja are swept up into a pile and 

then sieved and win- 
nowed by hand, and 
the grain and chaff 
heaped up in sepa- 
rate little mounds. 
For days and days 
under the blue sky 
and bright sun these 
toiling, singing, 

happy groups work 
on the ajas. And 
then, after their 
labors here are 
done, the men go to 
plowing the fields 
for sake of the vines 
and trees with rough 
wooden plows 
(boinbero), drawn 




" The men seize the wisps one at a 
time and beat their grain-filled 
ends violently against the aja 
floor or against a stone bench or 



block, until most of the grains by great sleek white 
have flown out." ^^^^^ ^^j^j^ ^.^j ^^g. 

sels and ribbons on their faces; while the women, 
especially in all the Val d'Arno below Florence, begin 
to plait the straw into hats. These are the hats 
that cover the floor and stalls of the New Market in 



Harvest Times 273 

Florence, and find their way by thousands to America 
as useful souvenirs. 

Besides the wheat {grano)^ a small-eared maize 
(gran-tiirco) , and a kind of millet (saggina), are 
grown in the poderi about Florence, as are also 
crimson and red clover for forage. The vivid 
patches of long-headed crimson clover, flowing and 
rippling In the soft breezes of May and June, are 
of singular beauty in their setting under the vines 
and trees. A tall, stiff-stemmed, purple-flowered 
bean Is grown In large quantities, the flattlsh white 
seeds of which serve, when freshly gathered, for 
human food, or, after drying, for horses and cattle. 
Parts of the poderi are given up to small plots of 
various vegetables for the kitchen or village market. 
Most interesting of these are the little green squashes 
or zucchini, which are the staple vegetable dish all 
through the summer. These zucchini vary In size 
and shape from large walnuts to small, thick ba- 
nanas, three or four Inches long, and are always 
tender and juicy, and most palatable. 

The farming land, divided Into poderi of various 
sizes, belongs chiefly to the villa owners, usually men 
of some wealth, the contadini, or peasants, only 
rarely owning their own holding. But each con- 
tadino family has Its own distinct podere to work 
and care for, doing this under the curious and long- 
established land tenure system of mezzeria, or " half 
and half." Connected with one villa or under one 
ownership there may be from one to many poderi, 
each with its contadino's house and outbuildings and 
stock, and single, sometimes rather complexly 



274 



Harvest Times 



formed, family. By complex I mean only that it 
may be composed of married sons or daughters with 

their families, or brothers 
and sisters, uncles and aunts 





:lr( 



'i'>r 



A podere well. 



■■■.m't 



.■•'-v»*fiflr'-i(ii.^''--7">-TiiFr--!.'i '^'^^ cousins, all added to 
■^^^M^:^0^' ^^^ central parental group. 



There is a head man, or 
capoccio, and head woman, 
or house-mother (massaia), 
and the rule of these two 
is rigid. The padrone or 
podere owner deals with 
the capoccio alone, and 
there is evidently a good 
deal of the protecting lord 
and master on the part of 
the padrone coupled at the 
same time with an unusually 
fine spirit of self-control and independence on the 
part of the contadino and peasant. 

" Theoretically," writes Mrs. Janet Ross, herself 
a large owner of poderi, and a practical " lord and 
master " of a dozen or more contadini families, 
" theoretically, mezzeria is the equal division between 
landowner and peasant of everything the soil pro- 
duces. The former brings the capital, the latter 
gives the labor. Every podere or farm, the size 
of which varies considerably in different parts of 
Tuscany (from 8 to 30, or even 40 acres), has on 
it a house, stable, and outbuildings, for which the 
peasant pays no rent. The necessary oxen, cows, 
horses, or donkeys, are paid for by the landlord, 



Harvest Times 275 

and all gain or loss on them is divided between him 
and the peasant. Every month the capoccio brings 
his book to be written up by the landlord or his 
factor, and half of whatever money he has cashed 
for milk, vegetables, fruit, and other minor products. 
Grain, pulse, wine, and oil are divided in kind, the 
landlord providing the necessary machinery for press- 
ing oil and wine, and the vats for the fermentation 
of the grapes. If silkworms are reared, the cocoons 
are sold by the landlord, who either pays the peasant 
his half share, or passes it to his credit in the books, 
which are audited once a year by a certified account- 
ant, who reads over the items of debit and credit 
to each contadino in the presence of the padrone, 
and then appends his signature. Many of the peas- 
ants can neither write nor read, but their memory is 
unfailing, and the slightest mistake is instantly cor- 
rected." 

That silkworms are among the domestic animals 
cared for on many of the poderi, the many mulberry 
trees growing in the grain fields and vineyards are 
plain evidence. Indeed, it will be only by the sight 
of these trees, the outward and visible sign of the 
indoor undertaking, that the casual observer can 
know that silken cocoons form a part of the annual 
produce of the farms. But if he can obtain per- 
mission of entrance from Sig. Cocchi, or some other 
proprietor of a filauda (silk-reeling establishment), 
near Florence, he can verify by his own amazed eyes 
the fact that millions of silkworms are fed and cared 
for every spring by the Tuscan contadini. 

In Cocchi's filanda in RIfredi, which we visited, 



276 Harvest Times 

we saw more millions of cocoons piled in great heaps 
on sliding trays one above the other, up to the high 
ceiling of the store-rooms, than we believed there 
could ever be silkworms enough to spin. And this 
was only one unwinding and winding up place among 
the hundreds of Italy! There were seventy girls 
and women tending the machines there and work- 
ing with amazing skill and speed at softening and 
cleaning away the loose floss, and finding the real 
thread ends, and unwinding, five or six at a time, 
the funny little bobbing and whirling cocoons in their 
hot water bath. The spindles and jigging things 
of the machines were all whirring like mad, while on 
them grew the beautiful masses of smooth, shining, 
golden, silken thread. And every now and then 
the woman would take her shining mass and carry 
it to put with others, to make a single great heavy 
skein that another machine twisted tight and firm 
into the final, long, heavy braid in which the raw 
silk comes to the factories. 

But before the silk can be unwound from the 
cocoons in the filanda it has to be made and spun 
by the silkworms. And that is so long a story that 
I cannot tell it here, as interesting and fascinating 
as it may be. It is the story of the silk in the con- 
tadino house, in the attic or cellar, if it is airy 
enough, or in the room right next the living-room, 
if necessary. The silkworms are not reared in a 
few big establishments or nurseries in Italy, as one 
might expect, and as would probably be done in 
America if we could ever rear them at all, but scat- 
tered among almost all the poderi, among all the 



Harvest Times 277 

contadini of the silk-raising sections. Each con- 
tadino gets some tested "seed" (eggs), that have 
been examined by experts to see that they are not 
tainted by the fatal pebrine, the disease that Pasteur 
taught silk-growers how to combat — and with the un- 
folding of the mulberry leaves in the spring, spreads 
these eggs out on a little tray in a well-aired, fairly 
light, and warm room. They soon hatch out their 
minute larvae, or caterpillars, the whitish, naked, 
i6-legged, strong-jawed silkworms, which demand 
immediately cut-up bits of tender, fresh mulberry 
leaf. They eat with an appetite incredible. Fifty 
centuries of domestication and cultivation have made 
the silkworm a nearly helpless stay-in-its-place, eat- 
ing and turning-what-it-eats-into-sllk machine. Part 
of what it eats goes to nourish the rapidly growing 
caterpillar, and part goes to make the viscous silk- 
fluid that accumulates in two long, contorted glands 
in its body. 

When the worms are full-grown they cease their 
audible munching of the mulberry leaves — munching 
that they have only interrupted temporarily four or 
five times for their moultings — and become restless. 
For the first time they seem to evince an interest in 
the world beyond their trays. But they are easily 
satisfied. Bunches of twigs or straws placed stand- 
ing in their trays attract them, and they climb up 
into them a little way and soon cease their slight 
attempts at foreign travel. They begin to spin silk. 
At first an irregular, loose skein of threads, inclos- 
ing them in a thin web much larger than the cocoon 
will be, and then, inside this, the real symmetrical 



278 Harvest Times 

compact cocoon, all made of a single, continuous 
thread almost a quarter of a mile long. The silk 
comes from the inner glands out of a tiny hole in 
the lower lip of the caterpillar, and hardens from a 
fluid to a solid as It Issues. The worm, standing 
with the forward part of Its body lifted, turns and 
twists Its head around and around, drawing the silken 
thread In lines, first criss-cross and irregular all about 
it, and then In regular, sweeping curves, hundreds 
of times repeated to make the thick cocoon. A 
habit which existed formerly purely for the sake of 
the protection of Its own inert body while under- 
going the change from caterpillar through chrysalid 
to moth, has been so developed under man's select- 
ing care that It is magnified out of all proportion to 
the creature's necessity. 

So all the bunches of twigs blossom with thick- 
set golden and white flowers of silk. And these 
flowers, when plucked and sent in basketfuls to the 
filanda, are what one sees filling the cool, dark store- 
rooms there. But a sad thing has to happen before 
the cocoons go Into the unwinding rooms. And that 
is the killing of the yet unborn moths inside. As 
mummy-like brown chrysallds the silkworms are 
slowly changing to moths. As soon as one becomes a 
moth, it is ready to come out. This it does, or would 
do if allowed to, by dissolving and cutting away one 
end of the cocoon by means of a special fluid and 
apparatus it has for just this purpose. But this 
would break the long, continuous silk thread into 
hundreds of short pieces, which is not at all what 
the silk-workers want. And so all the millions of 



Harvest Times 279 

cocoons are put as soon as they come to the filanda 
into great ovens, where they are heated to a tem- 
perature sufficient to kill the developing moths within 
them. All, that is, except a few extra large and 
finely colored ones, from which the moths are al- 
lowed to issue to mate and lay eggs — the " seed " 
for next year's silk crop. 

All the time since the grain harvest, the sun and 
showers, the soft airs and faithful soil have been 
preparing another harvest for the contadini of the 
poderi. In September and early October the vines 
are ready to be despoiled of their treasure, their 
hanging grappoli of black and red and white uva. 
The vintage used to be a fine festival in Tuscany, 
The picking of the grapes and their pressing, the 
fermenting of the juices, the tasting of the fresh 
wine, were occasions of singing and merry-making 
and joyful anticipations of the good returns of the 
thousands of liters of pure wine. Italy is second 
only to France in its output of wine, over 700,000,- 
000 gallons a year. But in the last few years the 
price of the simple, unblended, untreated Italian wine 
has fallen so low that the contadini and poderi own- 
ers are greatly discouraged. In the Casentino (the 
beautiful valley of upper Arno, just over the Val- 
lombrosan hills from Florence), a fiasco of wine can 
be purchased for from two to five cents. Some of 
the Casentinese contadini this season actually seri- 
ously considered letting the grapes rot on the vines 
rather than go to the labor of picking and pressing 
them. So the vintage in Tuscany, and for that mat- 
ter all over Italy, has lost much of its festival char- 



zSo Harvest Times 

acter. Yet it is still thoroughly picturesque to the 
foreigner, and worth going to some trouble to 
see. 

About Florence and in the valley of the lower 
Arno the grapes ripen and are gathered in Septem- 
ber; but in the Casentino, along the upper stretches 
of the river, the vintage does not begin until about 
the tenth of October. The autumn colors, wonder- 
ful flame and gold, have come to the beeches and 
chestnuts of the Apennine forests, then; the ways to 
Camaldoli and La Verna are delights ineffable to 
the color-hungering eyes; and the air is crisp in the 
early morning and full of the autumn melancholy 
through the day. The great casks or vats and the 
wooden bigonie are overhauled, new staves put in, 
and new bands put on where needed; shears and 
curving knives are sharpened and all made ready for 
the day of beginning. 

The Italian vintage has been often described. It 
is losing its picturesqueness because it has lost much 
of its joy. But the same slow white oxen, with their 
red face-tassels, move along the country roads with 
their cartloads of casks filled with partly pressed 
grapes. The same groups of men, women, and chil- 
dren swarm about the vines with their curved knives 
and shears, releasing the fragrant, colored masses 
from their mother stems. The same overflowing 
baskets carried again and again to the waiting 
bigonie; the same pervading, exciting odor of bruised 
grapes and already fermenting juice in all the air; 
all these signs of the vintage, characteristic and 
familiar since the days of Virgil, are still to be en- 



Harvest Times 281 

joyed by any countryside visitor to Italy in the 
autumn. 

In the wine-sheds, where the real pressing and the 
fermenting go on, the fragrance is almost overpower- 
ing. How the men who press the grapes in the 
bigonie with thick-headed wooden clubs, or the boys 
who still sometimes tramp vigorously with bare legs 
on the oozy mass in the great casks, or they who pour 
and carry the red fluid from cask to cask, manage 
to escape an intoxication from the pungent odor alone 
is beyond comprehension. I but ventured into one 
such bacchanal and came out reeling. 

At the same time as the harvest of the grapes, so 
long and expensively prepared for and with such 
problematical results, another harvest Is ready — one 
that has demanded no care or attention to make 
ready. It Is a harvest especially for the contadini 
and the little people of the city, and to enjoy its 
fruits they have only to garner them. The chest- 
nuts that have been falling noisily In the forests of 
the Apennines have but to be picked up and carried 
home to add no little to the food stock of the poorer 
Italian people. 

These chestnuts are made Into a sweetish but pala- 
table and nourishing flour by the peasants of the 
mountains. They are roasted and eaten by the 
working-people of the towns with meals as dessert, 
or between meals as we eat candies. They are made 
into great circular pies, of which slices are sold on 
the streets in all the poorer quarters. Made into 
puddings and stuffed into fowls they are served in 
all the middle-class homes and in the pensions and 



282 Harvest Times 

hotels. And, finally, they are saturated with sugar 
syrup and become, as marrons glaces, the bonnes 
touches of the wealthy. Thus the useful chestnut 
finds its welcome way into the mouths of all Italy 
and her guests. 

From May till the end of the year the olives have 
been hanging on the trees, first as tiny green buttons, 
then slowly, very slowly, getting thicker and longer, 
really olive-shaped, and finally turning from green to 
brown and brown to blackish. In November and 
December is gathering and oil-making time. As 
Florence is entirely surrounded by olive orchards, as 
all the hill-sides up to the very crests are silver-white 
with the breeze-tossed leaves of thousands of trees, 
olive harvest can be enjoyed by any visitor by simply 
driving out of the city to the nearest poderi. 

The odd growth habit of the trees — a habit forced 
on them by their master, man — will first attract 
the attention. The trunks are scarred and hewn 
by the knives of the caretakers in their eradication 
of pests; the branches are few and slender, springing 
curiously slight and irregular from the abrupt, broad 
summit of the trunk, and there are few or no middle 
or interior branches; there are only angularly radiat- 
ing outer ones. The berries are thick, though, upon 
these. The curious shape and aspect of the tree is 
all the result of the radical pruning and opening out 
necessary to expose the berries freely to the sun and 
to limit their number and thus determine a common 
good quality. 

In the picking the utmost care is used not to bruise 
the fruit. Fallen and bruised berries are kept sepa- 



Harvest Times 283 

rate from the others, and go to make an oil of second 
quality. I was told recently by an importer of 
Spanish and Italian oils that the olive-growers of 
America — and that means the olive-growers of Cali- 
fornia — are not careful enough in their picking and 
handling, and hence only In exceptional cases pro- 
duce oil of the quality of the European product. The 
pressing is done by having an ox roll a heavy mill- 
stone around on the berries in a great stone basin. 
Mrs. Ross describes the process as follows: 

" In the center was an Immense stone basin, in 
which revolved a solid millstone about five feet In 
diameter, technically called, I believe, an edge-run- 
ner, turned by a splendid white ox, which, to our 
astonishment, was not blindfolded. Our host told 
us that It was difficult to get oxen to do this work; 
it takes time and patience to accustom them to It. 
The millstone was set up on edge and rolled round 
in the stone basin, secured to a big column of wood 
which reached to the celling. The whole machine 
was most old-fashioned and clumsy, and the padrone 
said, laughing, evidently as old as Noah's Ark. In- 
to the stone basin, as clean as a dalry-mald's pan, 
five sacks of olives were emptied which. In a short 
time, were reduced to a mass of dark greenish-brown 
thick pulp. Stones and all were mashed with but 
little noise, save the occasional lowing of the ox 
when his tasseled and ornamented nosebag was 
empty. When Bencino judged that the olives were 
sufficiently crushed, the pulp was taken out from the 
mill, with clean new wooden shovels, and put Into 
a circular shallow basket, with a large hole through 



284 Harvest Times 

the middle, made of thick cord fabricated from 
rushes grown in the Pisan marshes, and looking very 
much like open cocoanut matting. As fast as these 
gabble, or cages, were filled two men carried them 
on a hand-barrow to the press in the corner of 
the room, and piled one on the top of the other 
under the press. Then began the hard work. Two 
huge posts were clamped with an iron support, a co- 
lossal beam through which goes the screw, finishing 
below in a large square block of wood with two 
square holes right through it. Into one of these Carlo 
stuck a long beam, to which he hooked a rope, the 
other end of which was secured round a turning 
pillar of wood some six or eight feet distant, with a 
handle against which the men threw their whole 
weight. With many groans and squeaks the big 
block of wood revolved to the right until all the 
rope was twisted round the pillar; then it was un- 
hooked, the beam was lifted out of its hole in the 
block and carried on Carlo's stalwart shoulder to 
be inserted into the next hole, and the rope again 
hooked round the end of the beam; this process con- 
tinued until not a drop more of oil could be extracted. 
The press was then screwed back, the gabbie carried 
on the hand-barrow to the mill, where they were 
emptied, and their contents again ground; then they 
were filled, and put under the press for the second 
time, when more oil came dripping out, but of in- 
ferior quality. The refuse that remains, called 
sausa, is almost black, and quite dry and gritty. 
This is sold for threepence or fourpence a bigoncia 
full, about 55 pounds in weight, for making soap." 



Harvest Times 285 

As the olive is two-thirds water and one-third oil, 
the result of the pressing is a liquid mass of oil 
and water. The oil rising to the top, however, 
is readily skimmed off and poured into receptacles 
that are transferred to a room of equable tempera- 
ture, where the oil is allowed to ripen and clear. 
It is then ready for market. 

With this I must make an abrupt end of Italy's 
harvest times. They are all beautifully Italian in 
their spirit; they are festivals as well as labors. 
They are the suggestion and the opportunity for 
song and praise of Nature, as well as the occasion 
and necessity for long hours of work. For Italy 
sings as she works — it is her inherited philosophy. 
We who weep and burn and curse as we struggle 
will never understand it. We may even profess a 
contempt for it, but we might do better to admire 
and envy it. At heart most of us do. 



CHAPTER XX 

FLORENTINE EXCURSIONS 

I. VALLOMBROSA AND OVER THE CONSUMA 

PASS 

THERE are certain excursions that the visitor 
to Florence makes quite as a matter of course. 
Besides the ones to Fiesole and the Certosa, he goes 
to Vallombrosa of the many leaves. 

One day on the Settignano train, in a warming 
week in June, I overheard the redder faced of two 
perspiring men in the car say to the other: " I am 
going out to Vallombrosa "; and he thereupon arose 
and went out to the front platform. Here he stood 
with hat in hand and seemed to get cooler. His 
remark was a metaphor of the street, for Vallom- 
brosa is one of the cooling-off places for the Floren- 
tines. Viareggio on the sea near Pisa is another, 
and besides there are the many hotels and pensions 
perched high in the Pistojese Mountain. To the 
tourist, however, Vallombrosa is a Mecca to visit, 
for the sake of the blind poet who made it famous 
in two lines, and for the opportunity of seeing the 
old monastery of the mountain-side in its beautiful 
forest setting. 

286 



Vallombrosa and the Consuma 287 

The going and returning are not the least interest- 
ing or beautiful parts of the pilgrimage. The long, 
slow, ever-ascending drive from S. Ellero (a sta- 
tion on the Florence to Rome railway), or the 
quicker, cheaper, and less dreamful ascent by funicu- 
lar, is a mountain climb of much ease and generous 
reward. First, orchards and vineyards, then woods 
and streams, and always the changing views of the 
winding Arno and its valley-floor and bounding hills 
and mountains. And if the day be a little misty or 
one of chasing clouds these views may remain the 
most pleasing memory of the whole excursion. The 
funicular ends at an unattractive hotel village (Sal- 
tino), standing out new and raw on a naked pro- 
jecting shoulder of the Protomagno. But the car- 
riage road winding along the mountain-side for a 
mile or more to the monastery is very beautiful. 
Even more beautiful, and better shaded and quieter, 
is the footpath. There is a hotel or two at the 
monastery itself. In fact, Vallombrosa is obviously 
a resort, and as much as you are disturbed by such 
obviousness so much less is Vallombrosa now the 
joy it must have been to earlier visitors. 

The monastery's foundation goes back nearly ten 
centuries, but its present buildings are only about 
four hundred years old, and they serve science in 
one of its practical undertakings; one, however, that 
promotes beauty as well as utility. The principal 
Italian governmental school and experimental station 
of forestry is now housed by the old convent. In 
rooms where once the gray-gowned monks muttered 
their paternosters and pondered the mysteries of 



288 Florentine Excursions 

heaven and hell, young men now squint through 
microscopes, test the strength of woods, and note 
the characteristics of noxious insects and fungi. The 
old library room, too, houses very different shelves 
of tomes; and In place of holy bones and bits of the 
true cross, long cases of stuffed birds, dried plants, 
and polished woods are the guarded treasures of the 
house. 

Outside the buildings on the mountain slopes are 
acres of nurseries, with their lines of infant trees in 
measured plots under cryptogramic labels. It is 
incontestable that Italy needs schools of forestry, 
trained foresters, and cared-for forests, much more 
than monasteries, monks, and cloister gardens, but 
to the tourist pilgrim to Vallombrosa, with soul 
properly attuned by Milton and Lamartine, there 
must come regret and a sigh, perhaps, that helpful 
science has had to replace picturesque religion at 
just this spot of consecrated earth. 

Vallombrosa's founding and the establishment of 
its monastic order came about through the active 
penitence of that Giovanni Gualberto, whose mem- 
ory is otherwise made sacred to us by the mutilated 
remains (in the Bargello) of Bernardo da Rovez- 
zano's masterpiece of decorative sculpture. It was 
to this profligate scion of a noble Florentine house 
that the Christ head on the crucifix, now inclosed 
in the little Michelozzo chapel in San Miniato, 
bowed in approving recognition of his generosity 
when he prayed before it in the old Benedictine ab- 
bey on Miniato mount in 1018. This sainted Gio- 
vanni — then, however, by no means a saint — came to 



Vallombrosa and the Consuma 289 

his prayer fresh from having spared his brother's 
murderer, whom a just hazard of fortune combined 
with an active personal search had put into his power. 
And in counter recognition of the miracle of the 
crucified image, what less could the noble young 
gentleman of Florence do than establish a monastery 
and hermitage, and found an order of monks to use 
them? And so it all came about as it did. 

In later years the monastery and order, having 
grown more rich in properties and compensatingly 
less rich in piety, came to be talked about with the 
tongue of scandal. And it may be as well that a 
practical-minded government interfered to dispossess 
the monastic culture of religion in favor of the scien- 
tific culture of forests. The dropping winds that 
come over the trees of Vallombrosa down to us in 
distant Florence can henceforth never bring with 
them aught but the whisperings of the spirit from 
God's true tabernacle and the healing balsam that 
distils from His complete immanence in Nature. 

Vallombrosa may be visited as a station on the 
over-mountain way to the Casentino. It is not ex- 
actly on the main highroad from Florence by Pontas- 
sieve and the Consuma Pass into the valley; but the 
main road can readily be reached from it by a beau- 
tiful drive of a few miles along the mountain-side. 
This drive is all the way through forests and high 
meadows and pastureland, and is so fragrant with 
its smells of spruce and larch, and so rich in its 
reaching views of Tuscan hill and valley that it 
should be made as a part of the Vallombrosan ex- 
cursion, even though the Casentino be not at the time 



290 Florentine Excursions 

an objective point. Near where the road joins the 
Casentino highway, a few rods short of Consuma 
village, the great dome of Florence, with the dim 
expanse of gray-red roofs huddling about it, is visi- 
ble. And one sees from here how closely the city 
is held in the protecting embrace of the hills that 
ring her round. 

The Casentino can be reached by an all-rail route 
by means of a little narrow-gauge road that branches 
off from the Florence-Rome main line at Arezzo, and 
runs up through the heart and into the very head 
of the valley. But immensely more rewarding is 
the driving way over the mountain. It is not only 
the out-of-doors fresh air and odors, and the close 
intimacy with the things and people of the roadside, 
that one gains by this way of going, but the pano- 
ramic unrolling and bird's-eye view of the Casentino 
from the summit of the mountain pass. One sees 
the whole of the vine-set valley with the poplar- 
lined Arno meandering down Its middle, the villages 
nestling, like Stia and Pratovecchia, in the river-bed, 
or perched, like Poppi and Bibblena, on the summits 
of their isolated hills, the ragged walls and crum- 
bling towers of the castle ruins on their giant sentry 
rocks, and guarding this fairyland away from 
the noisy world outside, the high, rough mountain 
rim all around it. Your eyes grow big as the en- 
chanting scene fills them, and then wet and misty 
for very pain of its beauty; your heart leaps with 
the thought of entering into the peace and simple 
joy of it all. For a tired body and a sore heart 
there can be no panacea of more promise of certain 



Vallombrosa and the Consuma 291 

healing than the Casentino seen from anywhere on 
its mountain ring under the Itahan sky of summer. 
In truth, did not that frailest and sometimes saddest 
of men, Francis of Assisi, find his most comforting 
hours up there at La Verna? And the heart-sore 
exiled Dante have forgetful days of peace as he wan- 
dered along the Arno in the valley's depths ? 

One can begin the day's drive from Florence itself, 
or save a little time for more leisurely covering the 
mountain part of the road by taking train to Pontas- 
sieve, and then carriage from there. The Pontas- 
sieve drivers make the most of their advantage when 
confronting a casual traveler, bundled off with bag 
and baggage into the forlorn little station. It is 
advisable to arrange definitely for a carriage before 
coming. There are drivers in the Casentino who 
will be glad to come over the mountain and meet 
you at the station; or probably the Pontassieve men 
will be reasonable if they do not have you so en- 
tirely at their mercy as they had us. There is, in- 
deed, a little diligence that meets one of the trains 
from Florence in the early afternoon, and gets over 
before night. But its cheapness is its chief recom- 
mendation. 

The road out of Pontassieve crosses the Sieve by 
a picturesque ponte (hence the village name) almost 
immediately, and begins its white and dusty uphill 
windings among olives and vines and through scat- 
tered little hamlets. As we jogged on we had con- 
stantly to meet and make a noisy way through flocks 
of sheep and goats, which were being driven down 
from the mountains to follow the Arno for many 



292 Florentine Excursions 

miles, and finally find pastures for the winter in the 
marshes of the Maremma. It was now only the 
beginning of October, but winter comes early in the 
mountains. Already the vineyards along the road 
were more yellow and red than green, and only a 
few scattered, drying bunches of grapes that had 
ripened too late for pickers, still clung to the vines. 
This troubled us a little, for we had been most 
anxious to see the Tuscan vintage. 

On our return from a trip into the Tyrol and 
Dolomites we had found the grapes about Florence 
already gathered and pressed. But we had been 
reminded that the vintage in such a mountain valley 
as the Casentino would be later, and so we had 
waited only long enough to unpack our trunks and 
repack our bags before starting over the mountains. 
Our youthful, politely loquacious driver reassured us. 
The grapes hereabout had all been gathered, yes, 
but over there, and he waved his whip generously 
to half the world, the vendemviia had not yet begun. 
And the vineyards were very beautiful in the Casen- 
tino. We should see things to remember. 

Along the roadside and inclosing the vineyards 
on either side ran a low stone wall, with its rough 
coping covered with thorny vines held down by heavy 
stones. This was a primitive but effective arrange- 
ment to guard the grapes against the barefooted 
children of the roadway. In one great vineyard 
that we passed, too, there was a curious high scaf- 
folding, with a sort of little straw-hut built on its 
top. This was the abode of a lookout, who perched 
aloft there through all the season of ripe grapes. 



Vallombrosa and the Consuma 293 

Evidently the children of Italy need more encourage- 
ment to be honest than is given them by the numerous 
roadside shrines. In this vineyard teams of great 
white oxen were already at the fall plowing. On 
every contadino's house along the road hung split 
tomatoes and figs in long chains, or festoons, drying 
in the sun. Sometimes, instead of being strung in 
chains, they were impaled on little twigs arranged 
together to form a many-branching tree. Here and 
there along the way we met or overtook peasants 
carrying loads of branches on their backs, and at 
a sharp turn in the road we came upon three buxom 
young women in animated gossip. Each had on her 
back an enormous load of leafy oak branches, and 
as they stood close together resting their strapped-on 
burdens against the stone wall they looked to be 
utterly overwhelmed under the great masses. They 
glanced up at us smiling, and their fresh red faces 
and big clear eyes gave no indication of the rav- 
ages that a few more years of such excessive labor 
were sure to bring. 

The hours sped quickly with the simple adventures 
of the way, and soon we were driving with all the 
necessary great clatter of whip-snapping and swift 
pounding of hoofs into the bleak, gray little village 
of Consuma, near the summit of the pass. It is a 
squalid alpine nest of charcoal burners. We counted 
twenty-four of the tenuous wisps of smoke rising 
from their fires in the forests of the upper slopes, 
and along the single village street most of the loung- 
ing men had faces and arms as black as those of 
chimney-sweeps. The road winds about for some 



294 



Florentine Excursions 



distance on the bare, wind-swept summit of the pass, 
but finally, passing an old chapel, picturesquely set 
about with firs, where a Florentine army once camped 
on its way over the mountains to ravage the Casen- 
tino, it begins its swift drop into the fairy lowland. 
When the eyes are sated for a moment with the 
wonderful stereoscope and its mountain rim, they be- 








gin to search out details. To the left, conspicuous 
on isolated hill summits, are the jagged pinnacles of 
two ruined castles. These are the relics of Romena 
and Porciano, in the old days two of the principal 
strongholds of the Conti Guidi, those noble gentle- 
men and freebooters who lorded it for so many 
generations over all the Casentino. The story of 
their fortunes and misfortunes, their loves and fra- 
ternal hates, is the human history of the valley. 



Vallombrosa and the Consuma 295 

When the Florentine RepubHc finally dispossessed 
them and tore down their hilltop castle fortresses, 
as an incident to its struggle with the warring bishops 
of Arezzo, to whom the Conti Guidi stood in a 
loose connection of fiefdom, it ended romance for 
the Casentino. 

But not beauty and picturesqueness. Inhabited 
to-day only by simple villagers and contadini, with 
a small but ominous beginning of factory workers 
along the banks of the power-producing streams, the 
valley has yet all it ever had of natural beauty, and 
has this enhanced by the addition of well-kept fields 
and vineyards over all its lower acres. As our car- 
riage rattled swiftly down to the tilled land we stared 
in surprise to see what seemed to be orchards of 
low or young trees become vineyards. For the 
Casentino vines are trained to grow on pioppi, small 
trees pruned to have low, broad, thick heads. The 
vines climb up the trunks and spread out under the 
thick foliage of the trees, which protect them from 
hail and heavy rains. From a little distance the 
vineyards seem like orchards of small, thick-headed 
trees bearing heavy bunches of red and white and 
black grapes. 

The fields (down in the flat land along the Arno) 
look like the rectangular spots in a vividly colored 
checkerboard. The stream has a narrow border of 
planted poplars on either bank, so that the shifting 
silver thread of water seems flanked by long pro- 
cessions of tall, feather-crowned marchers. Up on 
the slopes of the encircling mountains the vineyards 
give way to forests, first oak and chestnut, and then 



296 



Florentine Excursions 



still higher, and running up to the crest and the sum- 
mits of the irregular peaks, dark close-set firs. 
At the head of the valley is the great mass of 










.i.V"-:^.. 



<^^^ 



" The Casentino vines are trained to grow on pioppi, small trees 
pruned to have low, broad, thick heads." 

Falterona, highest of the mountain summits, and 
nourishing mother of the Arno. Against the hori- 
zon, straight across the valley, is the curious cliffy 
ridge of the Penna, with the V-shaped cleft in which 



Vallombrosa and the Consuma 297 

lies famous La Verna. We make out where Camal- 
doH is by the vivid autumnal copper-red of its glori- 
ous beech forest. At our feet is Borgo alia Collina, 
with its great stone gateway and castle-like palace 
of Landini, " celebrated commentator of Dante." 
Below Borgo lies the field of Campaldino, scene of 
the greatest of Casentino battles, that one in which 
the poet Dante became a warrior. Beyond it rises 
the steep hill of Poppi, with its restored castle and 
tower; and still farther, seen dimly near the foot 
of the valley, are the similar hill and village of 
Bibbiena, origin of that gay, verse-writing cardinal 
of the court of Leo X, whose friendship for Raphael 
was requited by the wonderful portrait of the Pitti. 

II. IN THE CASENTINO 

We lived at Poppi; and should we ever go back 
into the Casentino we should live again at Poppi. 
It is central, the whole valley is in view from it, 
it has the one really preserved castle in the region, 
it is itself a picturesque village, and, finally, it has 
a comfortable lodging-place, the pension Conti 
Guidi. They gave us there large, airy rooms, our 
breakfasts and luncheons under a blossoming arbor 
in the garden, and to care for us a maid named 
Concetta, who was more of the joy of living com- 
pressed into one person than we can hope ever to 
know again. Facing our garden gate was the great 
brown block of a castle, with its high, square tower; 
while at our free disposal was the ancient castle 
prato, of old a free jousting ground and now a little 



298 



Florentine Excursions 



quiet place of grass and a few old trees, with the 
warm sun splashing down through their branches. 
Some old men and women and a half-dozen playing 
children were usually on the scattered benches, and 
in one corner near the castle was a smoothed place 

for " bowls," busy 
every afternoon and 
all day Sunday. And 
from every way but 
the narrow town side 
was a breath-taking 
view out over the 
green and brown and 
lavender valley to the 
purple mountain hori- 
zon. 

From Poppi we 
made our excursions 
on foot along the 
dusty roads, with 
shepherds and sheep 
and heavy oxen for 

"Facing our garden gate was company; or by fra- 
the great brown block of a grant paths through 

castle [Poppi] with its high ^^e fields and vine- 

square tower." , i i • i 

yards; or by the wmd- 

ing way along the tree-lined shallow river. Occa- 
sionally we drove in a bouncing little carriage to the 
more distant places, like Camaldoll and La Verna. 
Or we could go down the hill to the station at its 
foot and take the toy railway train with its little 
parlor compartments to either end of the valley, 







In the Casentino 



299 



and then tramp back. In the soft moonht evenings 
we loitered in the old castle court listening half 
fearfully for ghostly noises from the banquet hall 
overhead or the dun- 



^'^'if. 



geon cells below. 

When thegreat fair was 

held at Bibbiena we 

went to it and bought 

a green umbrella. 

When the vintage 

came we joined the 

pickers on one of our 

landlord's p o d e r i, 

where Rowena picked 

and sang by Concetta's 

side. The Casentino 

days were wonderfully 

good days, every one 

of them. They filled 

our nostrils and lungs 

with a tingling air fresh from the mountain forests. 

They were of the kind that one dreams back to 

in fireside reveries. 

Someway it is Nature that has the upper hand 
with one in the Casentino. And yet there are re- 
wards for the picture hunter. At Stia, in the head 
of the valley, at Strada on the Solano, and on the 
hill near Romena are some old twelfth century 
churches. The special interest in them all is the 
crude carving of the capitals of the interior support- 
ing columns. In Stia these capitals bear curious 
beasts with tails wrapped about them, a mer- 




The entrance to Poppi Castle. 



300 



Florentine Excursions 



maid Eve, and other strange and monstrous figures. 
In the restored and picturesque Chiesa della Pieve 
about a half-mile from the gaunt ruin of Romena 
Castle are more of these fantastic sculptures, while 







^1 r~' ^ ^ 




miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuninir. 







A street fountain in Stia. 

in the little Chiesa di San Martino a Vado, near 
Strado, on the highroad (left) from Borgo alia 
Collina, they are especially naive. There are twelve 
pillars or columns in this church, low, heavy, and 
bulging in the center, and the capitals are all differ- 
ent. Almost all show crude leaf (lotus?) designs 
together with distorted animal or human figures. 
There are rams, grinning lions, monstrous winged 



In the Casentino 



301 



things, and a man on horseback with his feet touch- 
ing the ground. The pulpit pillar has four human 
figures on the faces and four more on the angles. 
The parts of the figures are grossly and comically 
out of proportion. All these churches were founded 
in the twelfth century, 
or perhaps latter half 
of the eleventh, prob- 
ably by the Countess 
Matilda, a conspicuous 
figure in early Casen- 
tino history. Her 
church building was 
her act of penitential 
piety, pro remedio 
anima, and the strange 
half-pagan carvings 
characteristic of them 
may express the per- 
sonal fancy of the 
sturdy countess her- 
self, or perhaps that of 
her architect-builder. 
Their special significance ought to be a pretty problem 
for the antiquary. 

In these churches, as in several others in the val- 
ley, pictures of more or less interest are to be found. 
The Casentino possesses also an unusual abundance 
of colored terra-cottas in the della Robbia manner. 
Indeed, at La Verna, where these terra-cottas are 
particularly numerous, some of the pieces are un- 
doubtedly from the hands of the della Robbias them- 




The 



gate tower 
Castle. 



of Poppi 



302 Florentine Excursions 

selves, and include certain unusually large and two, 
at least, unusually beautiful, ones. 

Of the castle ruins five are especially notable, 
namely, those of Porciana, near Stia; Romena, near 
Pratovecchia ; San Niccolo, near Strada; Monte- 
mignajo, above Strada, and the better preserved and 
now largely restored structure at Poppi. Each of 
these is on a hilltop, and all, as well as others now 
totally destroyed, were strongholds of the Conti 
Guidi, To make these old castle walls and towers 
real, one should know something of the extraordinary 
family that provided for so long the feudal lords 
of the Casentino. From the eleventh century until 
1440 the Casentino was a true feudal province, 
under the rule of the successive heads of the Guidi 
family. The Conti Guidi reached an extraordinary 
pitch of grandeur and power, holding besides their 
eight or nine castles in the Casentino, palaces and 
fortresses in Florence and elsewhere. They became 
allied by marriage with other powerful families of 
northern Italy; and the story of their wars and in- 
trigues and loves, their display and arrogant pre- 
tension, their internecine troubles, and final complete 
overthrow by the Florentine Republic is a fascinating 
tale. Ella Noyes's " The Casentino and Its Story " 
tells enough of this for the casual visitor. The 
student will want something more eingehend and bet- 
ter documented. Thus prepared, the visitor will 
hear from these rugged fragments of massive wall 
and lifting tower echoes of their old life; he will 
catch glimpses of their ancient pageantry and glory. 
The castle at Poppi is now being slowly but in- 



In the Casentino 



303 



telligently and honestly restored at the expense of the 
city of Florence. Its court, though much smaller, 
is comparable in beauty and rough grace with that 
of the Florentine Bargello. Indeed, the designer 
of the Bargello court is said to have caught his in- 
spiration from this smaller one of Poppi. The 
angling stair and pillared 
rail, the stemmi on the 
walls, and the open bal- 
cony above are simply 
magnified and modified 
in the Bargello. The un- 
usual shape and massive 
high walls of the castle, 
its strong crenelations on 
walls and tower, its sub- 
terranean prisons and 
great cisterns, its old 
well in the courtyard, the 
bit of remaining moat 
and stone bridge, the 
jousting and dueling 
ground in front, and its 
bold, dominating situa- 
tion on the summit and 
verge of the steep hill-slope, all combine to make 
the Poppi stronghold a fascinating relic of the rough 
but picturesque feudal days of Italy. 

It has memories, too, of other days than warring 
ones, and of other knocks at its gate than those of 
besieging enemies. Dante was the guest here of the 
Countess Battifolia from the summer of 13 10 to 




The court of Poppi Castle, 
" though much smaller, is 
comparable in beauty and 
rough grace with that of the 
Florentine Bargello." 



304 



Florentine Excursions 



the end of the spring of the following year, if the 
zealous historians of the Casentino can prove their 
contention. And here he shall have written " il 
celehre e sublime canto XXXIII dell' Inferno." 
Less celebrated and sublime, but with a human touch 
withal, is the verse carved in the stone of the outer 




" The angling stair and pillared rail, the stemmi on the walls 
and the open balcony" of the court of Poppi Castle. 

wall to the right of the entrance and over a sug- 
gestively small, dark, heavily-barred window : 

" Non per veder questa tomba ripiena, 
Ma per pieta di povere persone, 
Qui fece fare una nuova prigione 
II cavalier Francesco da Romena." * 

* Not with the wish to see the dungeon filled, 
But out of pity for its wretched ones, 
The cavalier Francesco da Romena 
Erected a new prison on this site. 



In the Casentino 



305 



This good deed was done in 1649, ^^^ the "new 
prison " was doubtless provided with all modern 
comforts ! 

From Poppi hill one looks through the shimmer- 
ing air straight down the Arno to Bibbiena, perched 
also on the tip-top of an isolated hill, rising like 
a great sugar loaf from the river's bed. The day 
before the vintage was to begin all Casentino came 
to Bibbiena to buy and sell and visit together. Shoes 




"Past contadinos' houses all hung over with drying gold and 
orange corn." 



and pigs, woolens and oxen, umbrellas and bleating 
sheep, new tools for the farmyard, new casks for 
the wine-shed, colored kerchiefs for feast-days; all 
things useful and ornamental to the Casentinese were 
bargained for in Bibbiena this day. And between 
bargainings, the red wine washed down the fried 
cakes and macaroni. 

We went to the fair in the afternoon, by a devious 
narrow lane, along the hill-side among vineyards, and 
past contadinos' houses all hung over with drying 



3o6 Florentine Excursions 

gold and orange corn and purple-brown millet heads. 
The way dropped gradually down from Poppi hill to 
the river level, and here we gained the path under 
the poplars along the water's edge. The Arno in 
the Casentino is simply a quiet, shining little country 
stream, with riffles at the shallow places and still 
pools in holes hollowed under the banks like any 
brook at home. 

As we neared the bridge at the foot of Bibbiena 
hill we saw it and the main road already alive with 
the earlier home-comers, persons that lived far up on 
the mountain slopes and had long hours of tramping 
to reach their eeries before the light should fail. It 
was a motley procession. It looked like a whole 
people moving out of one land into another. Women 
on donkey-back with men tramping by their side, 
like Joseph and Mary in Fra Angelico's Flight into 
Egypt; children in little carts or gamboling along 
the roadside; driven oxen, sheep, and pigs; laden 
baskets of homely bargains, new short-handled green 
umbrellas; and a running fire of jest and laugh and 
chatter along the whole line. As each branching 
way left the main road it received its share of the 
procession, and all along the valley and far up the 
hill-slopes we could see the diverging thin lines, dark 
against the dusty roads. 

Once fairly in Bibbiena our chief thought was 
to get out again. In the church of the convent 
San Lorenzo there are two della Robbia pieces; and 
the old twelfth century Propositura has interesting 
architectural details. But this was not the day for 
seeing Bibbiena's relics. The narrow streets were 



In the Casentino 307 

utterly jammed; booths, shops, auction, all roaring 
and reeking. We wanted the quiet path by the river 
again. 

The twilight was falling as we wandered back. 
The road to the bridge was more populous now. 
Here and there were groups stopped to compare 
purchases, or for an argument, or to make farewells 
at a forking of the roads. We passed a perplexed 
and perspiring peasant trying to drive a great hog 
that preferred to lie down. The man looked at us 
inquiringly and almost beseechingly, as if for advice. 
But the pig was too big and too sick for our wits 
to compass any better than its owner's the means of 
moving it. Along the path by the river an angler 
loitered, loth to leave his unwhipped pools; and in the 
thicket across the stream a man with gun still beat the 
bushes for song-bird game. In the fields by the path 
were little flocks of sheep tended by singing girls and 
diminutive whistling boys. And behind and in front 
of us straggled scattering little groups of home- 
farers. It was the simple pastoral that the old 
painters loved and that still lives in the Casentino 
to-day little changed from those days in which it was 
painted into the Holy Family backgrounds. 

From Poppi to Camaldoli is a slow drive out of 
the valley garden, up hill-slopes long denuded of 
forest and horribly stripped of soil, and worn into 
great ravines by the unchecked waters. As we 
wound along a bleak, bare shoulder we saw below 
us Moggiona, a gray ghost of a village on the gashed 
and sterile slope. It pitifully pointed the moral of 



3o8 Florentine Excursions 

this story of reckless deforestation. Nature takes 
quick revenge for an affront of this sort. Beyond 
and above Moggiona, however, the forests began. 
And here all was luxuriance and loveliness. The 
road from here to the old monastery (now partly 
hotel) was lined by chestnut, oak, and copper beech- 
woods, while above them the firs climbed dense and 
dark to the crest of the mountains. There were 
sounding waters and deep, wild cafions. And such 
resplendent masses of color — it was October — as 
fairly took our breath. The vividness, the con- 
tinuity, and boldness of color of these great thou- 
sand-acre blotches on the mountain-sides were beyond 
our experience. 

Camaldoli itself is a miscellaneous pile rebuilt in 
the sixteenth century and picturesquely put by a swift 
stream in the wild canon of the Giovana. It was 
founded by St. Romualdo in the eleventh century, 
and has had an eventful history of piety, war, schol- 
arship, and benevolence. St. Romualdo is only less 
interesting as a personality than St. Francis, and his 
white-gowned and white-hatted disciples were mas- 
ters in both the arts of acquiring property and 
charitably dispersing it. To them is largely due 
the credit for the preservation and fostering care 
of the beautiful trees all about the convent. Even 
to-day their ownership of forest lands is still exten- 
sive. 

Two miles above the monastery, an hour's walk, is 
the hermitage, a curious group of little huts and 
two small churches in a large inclosure. The hut 
or cell occupied by St. Romualdo is pointed out, as 



In the Casentino 309 

well as one built by " a Medicean princess in expia- 
tion of the grave fault of having entered, by means 
of a masculine dress, the sacred inclosure prohibited 
to women." The inhabitants of these cells led a 
most rigorous life of solitude. 

La Verna is farther and higher from the valley's 
center than Camaldoli. One can go, indeed, by 




Camaldoli in its forest. 

winding and climbing forest paths directly from Ca- 
maldoli, visiting Badia a Prataglia on the way. This 
beautifully situated alpine hamlet of charcoal burn- 
ers stands on the highway from the Casentino over 
Monte Acuto into the Romagna. It was the seat 
of an abbey before Camaldoli was founded. But 
as St. Romualdo's foundation grew larger, Prata- 
glia's Badia grew less. In the crypt there once ex- 



3IO Florentine Excursions 

isted, according to Beni, certain columns with Roman 
capitals like those of San Vitale at Ravenna. 

We visited La Verna from Poppi, going, as is 
necessary, by way of BIbbiena. Our devoted Poppi 
driver deploring almost tearfully his inability, on 
account of sudden press of affairs, to take us him- 
self, and warning us sadly against the Inhumanity 
of BIbbiena drivers, put us into a decrepit little 
cart behind an equally decrepit and dwarfish pony 
in charge of a mere babe of a cocchicre. This in- 
fant was to get us as far as BIbbiena, where we 
might hire a suitable carriage for the rest of the way. 
The morning had broken gray and misty, and as we 
reached the summit of BIbbiena hill, and center of 
the village, a cold, steady drizzle had enveloped all 
our world. It was a discouraging beginning, and 
we were quite ready to turn back. But from the 
gloomy cavern of a stable, in front of which our 
child coachman had stopped, an active, dark-eyed 
man had already stepped out and was asking our 
pleasure. We perforce explained the situation and 
our need, and asked him, not without a secret hope 
of being dissatisfied, to name at once and definitely 
his ultiss'imo prezzo. Our hope of dissatisfaction 
was more than realized. It was a cattivo tempo, 
the road would be slippery for the horse, he himself 
would get wet, and so on. He would take us for 
twenty lire. With a smile of knowledge we turned 
away, relieved at this easy quietus on our unpromis- 
ing expedition. 

'* Twelve lire would be more than good pay," cried 
Rowena, " we'll go back." 



In the Casentino 



311 



"Ah, well, then twelve lire; shall I hitch up im- 
mediately, signora?" came back without a moment's 
hesitation. And before we had recovered our 
breath, used even as we were to Italian bargaining 
and vagary in the matter of prices, our new con- 
ductor had slipped on his oilskins and was hitching 
up. In another trice we were off with a clatter and 
splashing, starting 
downhill to the La 
Verna road. 

We came soon to 
the little Dominican 
church and convent of 
Santa Maria del Sasso. 
This was originally a 
simple hospice, but 
was expanded under 
the direction of Sa- 
vonarola and by the 
generosity of Lorenzo 
the Magnificent. In 
the church is an orna- 
mented central taber- 
nacle, with a della 
Robbia frieze. Be- 
hind this shrine, under 
a perched dove, is the sacred stone (sasso) on which 
a peasant once saw the Holy Mary seated by the 
roadside at the spot where now the church stands. 

Along the climbing road to St. Francis's famous 
monastery, set aloft in mountain cliffs and forest, 
we saw again the characteristic scenes of the simple 




St. Francis's famous 
tery, set aloft in 
cliffs and forest." 



monas- 
mountain 



312 



Florentine Excursions 



old-time life that still persists in this shut-in valley of 
medievalism; old women with distaff and spindle, 
ox-carts and wooden plows, singing lads and maids 
with their sheep. And for a while all the beauties 
of the valley fields and vineyards lay on either hand. 
But beyond the Corsalone the way quickly grows 
steeper and rougher, and the tilled land gives place 
to oak scrub and hill-side pastures. The road is a 
hard one, having many bits of climbing far too cruel 
even for light vehicles. 

It was a day of moving mist and showers, and 

the views of the val- 
ley below were 
broken and shift- 
ing. In front of 
and above us all was 
gray. We seemed 
to be winding and 
climbing upward to 
some mystery in the 
clouds. 

La Verna's 
strange congeries of 
great cliffs, rock 
caverns, and un- 
formed buildings, a 
holy place of mystic 
ecstasies, is inde- 
scribable in words. The seeing visitor will find him- 
self accompanied by a brown-robed guide, who leads 
him by confusing paths from point to point, reciting 
as he goes the naive history of the adventures of 




In the Casentino 313 

St. Francis, the " subhme beggar." Here he talked 
with the birds and small beasts of the forest; there 
he wrestled with the devil; in that bare rock niche 
he slept on the rough stone shelf; this is the great 
stone where Christ sat when he appeared to the holy 
man; there is the jutting rock where the faithful 
falcon alighted to wake him each morning. And, 
finally, where the chapel of the Stigmata is now 
built into the rambling pile of stone walls is the very 
spot of the greatest miracle of all, that fact or fancy 
of the stigmatization, which has led to such in- 
terminable theologic and scientific discussion. 

For the incorrigible treasure hunter there are in 
La Verna's church and chapels numerous opportuni- 
ties for discovery. The della Robbia terra-cottas, 
especially a beautiful Annunciation and an As- 
cension in the principal church, singularly conso- 
nant in their simplicity and setting with the whole 
atmosphere of the place, are a quest in themselves. 
There are, too, some paintings here and there, and 
some beautifully carved wooden stalls. 

The hundred gowned, bareheaded monks who 
still inhabit this vast confusion of convent chapels 
and cloisters, with their chanting processions and 
their friendly hospitalities, lend La Verna an atmos- 
phere of medieval reality. But more than anything 
else it is the recognition of the actuality of the ex- 
traordinary man whom La Verna personifies that 
the visitor retains as a lasting memory of his pil- 
grimage. 

St. Francis was one of that smaller group of his- 
toric religious mystics whose hallucinations led to 



314 



Florentine Excursions 



enduring action, and whose personality had a reality 
that has made it persist as a genuine religious force 
even into these iconoclastic days. The seeming 
miracles of his sub-conscious hours someway trans- 
lated themselves reasonably in his times of conscious- 
ness. His acting fell no whit behind his exhorting. 
His body was utterly transparent to the radiations 
of his spirit. 

It is only the law of things that the Little Brothers 
of Poverty should fall short to-day, in some measure, 

of their founder's 
ideal. Jovial, red- 
fa c e d, fat-chopped 
Brother Urbino, who 
showed us much spe- 
cial politeness, some- 
way hardly realized 
the ascetic figure of 
the emaciated and 
pain-racked Francis. 
And his voluble speech 
often touched worldly 
matters. 

One of his stories 
was of a man who 
went far away from 
Italy to California and 
made a fortune — ah, 
such a mass of dollars 
— and came back with 
them, and spent them — e fiualmente mortf It lacked 
d'esprit as an anecdote, but It revealed a certain de- 




A climbing path at La Vcrna. 



In the Casentino 315 

generate interest In the dollars that was suggestive. 
Still, it would be altogether too surprising to find 
every Franciscan a St. Francis. 

A picture we saw a little later, as we went down 
the road from the convent gate to our carriage, was 
more satisfying. In the open door of a rough little 
hut, almost filled with piled-up, stripped willow 
branches, a tall, slender, sweet-faced monk was sit- 
ting and seriously chatting with the peasant woman 
who was plaiting the willow withes into baskets. 
This was more like the little brother of poverty of 
the Fioretti, more like the simple holy man that 
Sabatier makes so vivid and convincing in the Life. 
As much as La Verna is real and a stimulating per- 
sonification in stone and terra-cotta and forest and 
cliff of the spirit of its founder, we needed some such 
human touch as this of Brother Bernadone in the 
peasant hut to remind us to the full of the spiritual 
beauty and simplicity, the very etherealization of 
humanity that was Saint Francis. 

III. PRATO AND PISTOJA 

Along a single short stretch of railway, of sixty 
miles or thereabouts, which extends from Florence 
on the Arno to Pisa on the Arno, but doesn't follow 
the river at all, lie the four towns of Prato, Pistoja, 
Lucca, and Pisa. All have close historic and artistic 
associations with Florence, and all are, in a way, 
really only a part of Florentine sightseeing. Pisa 
is, of course, on the regular tourist calendar; its 
leaning tower, cathedral, baptistry, and Campo 



3i6 Florentine Excursions 

Santo, that wonderful four in their isolated, quiet 
field, have made it famed over all the world. But 
Lucca, if it had no more in it to see than its single, 
priceless jewel, the tomb of Ilaria — and it has many 
more — ought on no account to be missed. And Pis- 
toja and Prato are, if not equally, at least very 
certainly, worth while. From Prato one carries 
away at least one lifelong picture, that of the ex- 
quisite Donatello pulpit in colored stone on the ex- 
ternal wall angle of the cathedral, and of Pistoja 
he will remember much more than the guide-books' 
supposition, that it was the original home of the 
pistol. 

The servants showed what seemed an unnecessary 
excitement when they learned of our projected little 
outing. Maria had dark premonitions of the dan- 
gers of extended railway travel; Marina devoted 
extra hours to the overhauling of Rowena's ward- 
robe. Beppi commiserated Boy, the dog, on their 
approaching lonesomeness. To put the sixty miles 
of railway travel in their proper light — or. Indeed, 
one hundred and twenty, as we should have to re- 
traverse them to get back again — we spoke of the 
five days and nights of steady steaming from New 
York to San Francisco as a journey made not In- 
frequently In our home country. But this was a 
mistake of over-shooting the mark. Maria, Indeed, 
who had been in distant Vienna and Buda-Pesth, 
seemed to have some realization of such a feat of 
railway travel, but for BeppI and Marina it was an 
inconceivable performance. However, after getting 
new candles for the shrine on the outer house wall, 



Prato and Pistoja 317 

and having them blessed by the village priest as 
he made his benevolent round of the roads, the serv- 
ants had some hope of seeing us again. 

This blessing of the field and roadside shrines 
by the Settignano prior and a motley little procession 
of women and children, with two or three old men, 
shot us back through the centuries. It was on the 
very morning of our projected excursion. We were 
wakened at dawn by the intoning voices in the road- 
way, and, peeping through the shutters, we saw the 
straggling procession coming towards us, along the 
road from Gamberaia. Colored banners, tall 
candles, and a crucifix on a long staff bobbed about 
overhead. In front strode seriously the priest and 
his assistant, robed in their silken vestments. Along 
the flanks and at the rear of the little column gam- 
boled children. Halt was made under our wall 
shrine, with its fresh flowers and new candles, and 
the prayer and blessings were intoned by the priest, 
while the women murmured responses and the chil- 
dren strove to keep a respectful silence. Then all 
moved on to the next tinseled Mary, or pitiful, 
weather-worn roadside crucifixion. 

While Prato is only about twenty minutes by rail- 
way from Florence, we managed to prolong the jour- 
ney to an hour and a half by going by the noisy, 
smoky, jouncing steam tram, that starts from near 
the central railway station and lands one in Prato 
under the high, crumbling, plant-grown walls of the 
old prison. Part of the hour and a half was used 
up in allowing a passenger to get out and trot back 
a quarter of a mile for his hat, lost overboard. And 



3i8 



Florentine Excursions 



some more disappeared during the proper discussion 
of this event by the tram officials and most of the 
passengers. But it is exactly for such incidents of 
real Italy that we travel when we can by intermittent 
trams that ramble through fields and back streets, 
or by pony carriages that explore country lanes and 
pull up at the smallest of trattorie. 

The Prato tram shows one a good deal of Tuscan 
life. It brushes past the long, hanging, fruit-laden 




A bit of Tuscan countryside. 

branches that straggle over vineyard fences. It 
ambles slowly by a stone-floored aja, where the men 
are beating the grain out with sticks or whipping 
the sheaves against the floor. It pushes through 
high walls of corn, a lush green growth that makes 
mockery of the too familiar phrases used to describe 
the " centuries-old, gaunt, used-up land of Italy." 
It takes one intimately by open doorways, in which 



Prato and Pistoja 319 

women and girls sit, chatting and laughing, but al- 
ways steadily, interminably plaiting straw for the 
gay hats of the Mercato Nuovo in Florence. And 
finally, it lands one under the old fortress and prison 
walls of Santa Barbara, and immediately at the door 
of the curious domed church of Madonna delle Car- 
ceri. Here we begin promptly our Prato sight- 
seeing. 

It is a church of the late fifteenth century, in the 
form of a Greek cross. The heavy dome rests on 
an attic story, and seems too large for the building. 
Within there is an attractive blue and white terra- 
cotta frieze by Andrea della Robbia, with four large 
medallions of the Evangelists, with their conven- 
tional accessories. 

We had popped into the church too quickly to 
be espied by any possible commissionaires, if such 
there might be lurking for visitors in this sleepy little 
town. But when we came out and wandered slowly 
along, with eyes fascinated by the crumbling, high, 
old city wall, with the decaying fortress atop of it, 
and the little green bushes growing fearlessly in its 
crevices, we found ourselves provided with a valet 
de place, of such insinuating grace and quiet persist- 
ence that for once we broke one of the firmest articles 
in our traveling creed. We surrendered with hardly 
a struggle, and accepted our master. He was a 
boy with a live white rat in his arms; or better, he 
was the Boy with the White Rat. For he is unique 
in our experience. 

All that sweet, long summer day of loitering in 
churches and before corner shrines, standing deaf- 



320 



Florentine Excursions 



ened among the copper beaters by the river, or watch- 
ing and chatting with the wool-weavers and hat-mak- 
ers in the by-streets, we shared our delights with our 
boy of the white rat. As we sat at coffee on the 




" The patched walls of the ancient Palazzo Pretorio." 

piazza sidewalk in the shade of the patched walls of 
the ancient Palazzo Pretorio, watching the street 
ragamuffins climb precariously up to put their thirsty 
lips to those water-spouting ones of the stone 
Cupid on the old piazza fountain, our rat-tamer and 
his blinking charge nestled at our feet. 

Sometimes we made an imposing procession of it 



Prato and Pistoja 321 

when we picked up followers faster than they tired 
of us — or rather of that soft-haired, pink-eyed, white 
thing nuzzling in our guide's arms. For we were 
nothing to the children of Prato, but the white rat 
was much. As we rested on the steps of the foun- 
tain in the cathedral piazza watching the pigeons 
whirling about the beautiful pulpit, we had twelve 
boys, beside the rat, for company; as many joyous 
children almost as Donatello had carved there in the 
pulpit reliefs. 

The pulpit is partly Michelozzo's, according to 
authority, but the reliefs must certainly be Dona- 
tello's own. They remind one irresistibly of those 
happiest of all singing boys in the world, those living 
images in stone on the cantoria in the little Duomo 
museum in Florence. Five times a year (Easter, 
May I, August 15, September 5, and Christmas Day) 
Prato's famous relic, the girdle of the Madonna, is 
shown from the pulpit. The holy myths of this 
girdle are the subjects of some of the Duomo's most 
precious works of art. We find them in Ridolfo 
Ghirlandajo's fresco over the west portal, in Mino 
da Fiesole and Antonio Rossellini's carved pulpit, 
and in the Madonna statuette by Giovanni Pisano, 
the architect of the church. The finest frescoes in 
the cathedral are those of Filippo Lippi in the choir, 
picturing the lives of John the Baptist and Stephen 
the Martyr. It was here in Prato that Fra Filippo 
found and seduced from her convent cell the beau- 
tiful Lucrezia Buti, whose sweet Madonna face 
grows so familiar in the Lippi pictures. 

In the quiet cloisters of San Francesco we saw 



222 



Florentine Excursions 



some fading frescoes in the manner of Giotto, but 
let our eyes linger more on the decaying beauties 




" The pulpit is partly Michelozzo's. according to authority, but 
the reliefs must certainly be Donatello's own." 

of the cloister inclosure: an old well, the peeling 
columns, and the ragged garden. In a cupboard 



Prato and Pistoja 323 

shrine on an angle of Via Santa Margherita is a 
fading but still very beautiful painting of Filippino 
Lippi, a Madonna and four accompanying figures, 
Anthony, Stephen, Margherita, and Costanza. It 
took much scurrying about by our rat-taming guide 
to get the key of the shrine doors, with the result 
that we viewed the picture with most of the inhabi- 
tants of the quarter at our elbows and back. But 
it was as new to some of them as to us. 

Other things there are to see in Prato: two or 
three churches, with pictures of reputed interest, and 
a small gallery in the Palazzo Communale. But 
our day had come to its end. So the white rat 
escorted us faithfully to the station and waited with 
us for the train. It was truly a reluctant a river- 
derci. 

Some persons have found Pistoja a revelation of 
unexpected beauty and interest. We have not. 
Beautiful things and interesting ones there are cer- 
tainly, but the town as a whole brought us no such 
continuous, positive satisfaction and quiet joy as little 
Prato or larger Lucca. However, to the student 
grounded in Tuscan history or Tuscan art, Pistoja 
must be a rich hunting-ground. Even the casual 
visitor cannot escape realizing that he is in an atmos- 
phere filled with murmurs of an unusually eventful 
past, and that he sees here surprisingly plainly some- 
thing of the modulations that bind the art of one 
city or one epoch to that of another. To take a 
simple and very obvious instance : he notes unavoid- 
ably the appearance here and there on the church 
fagades of those rows of short columns that are so 



324 



Florentine Excursions 



much more in evidence in Lucca, and so dominatingly 
characteristic of the Pisan cathedral group. And 
in remembering that it was here that Catiline was 
defeated and slain, and that here the great Guelph- 
Ghibelline struggle toolc on its significant Blacks 




" The striking, column-laden, long fagade of San Giovanni 
Fuorcivitas." 

against Whites phase, one will have two samples 
of the incidents that go to make up the dispropor- 
tionate importance this little town assumes in the 
tale of Rome and Italy. 

Pistoja is a place of many churches, as one realizes 
even before reaching it from the abundance of tow- 
ers and domes that lift above its red gray roofs. 



Prato and Pistoja 



325 



And almost all of these churches seem to have some- 
thing in or on them worth seeing. There is the 
striking, column-laden, long fagade of San Giovanni 
Fuorcivitas, with its fascinatingly naive old relief of 





" Vasari's imposing dome and lantern on Madonna dell' Umilta." 

the Last Supper (Gruamons) over the door. There 
is the elaborate pulpit of Giovanni Pisano in Sant' 
Andrea, with its reliefs of crowded figures and curi- 
ous animals between the bases of the columns. There 



326 



Florentine Excursions 



are the numerous frescoes of Giotto's school in San 
Francesco, and Vasari's imposing dome and lantern 
on Madonna dell' Umilta. Finally, there is the 
Duomo of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with 
its facade of short columns, its loggia with statues 




The Duomo of Pistoja. 

on the roof, and its della Robbia medallions in the 
recess over the central door. 

Inside the Duomo, near the entrance (right wall), 
is one of the most curious tomb monuments to be 
seen in all Italy. It commemorates the virtues 
of Cino Sinibaldi, teacher of Petrarch and friend of 
Dante. The naive relief shows the poet professor 
lecturing to a group of students, among them Pe- 
trarch and one woman. Most of the class seern a 
little less than interested in the conference. At the 



;iM^^^' 




O .2 

n 



o Z 



Prato and Pistoja 



327 



other end of the church in the chapel of the Sacra- 
ment (left of the choir) is a Madonna and Child, 
and a rather stiff but interesting relief bust of Bishop 
Donato dei Medici, by Antonio Rossellino, the Set- 
tignano hill-side sculptor. The hollow-cheeked, set- 
lipped ascetic face is very strong, and suggests care- 
ful portraiture. In the chapel on the right of the 




"The Duomo is one of a group of interesting structures facing 
on an open piazza, whose most conspicuous feature is the 
high square campanile, or Torre del Podesta." 

choir is the principal treasure of the church, an altar 
with elaborate silver reredos and wings worked in 
marvelous detail and delicacy by Pistojese and Flor- 
entine silversmiths. The relief carvings tell stones 
from the Old and New Testaments, and from the 
life of St. James. We spent a fascinated hour be- 



328 



Florentine Excursions 



fore this wealth of little figures and scenes, finding 
every minute new beauties or curiosities to exclaim 
at. One could repeat there many such hours. 

The Duomo is one of a group of interesting struc- 
tures facing on an open piazza, whose most con- 
spicuous feature is the high square campanile, or 




The inclosed court of the Palazzo Pretorio. 

Torre del Podesta. It was anciently a fortified tower, 
but in 1 30 1 was made over and ornamented with 
series of short columns in Luccan and Pisan fashion. 
On the same side with Duomo and Campanile is the 
old Palazzo Communale, while opposite are the oc- 
tagonal black and white Baptistry and the later Pa- 
lazzo Pretorio. Workmen were busy in the Pa- 
lazzo del Commune, and so we could not see its 
reputed treasures of wood-carving and marble re- 



Prato and Pistoja 329 

liefs. But In the Palazzo Pretorio we had a cooling 
rest in the Inclosed court, sitting with our legs a-swing 
on the old stone bench of justice. In the walls and 
heavy masonry pillars of the roof vaulting are many 
stemmi of ancient podestas. It Is a place of charm 
and reminiscence, this cool, cellar-like quadrangle of 
the stern old palace. 

In the piazza a weekly cloth market is held, and 
in the wall of the Palazzo Communale an official 
metal braccio measure Is embedded, so that any man 
may readily verify his own or his neighbor's cloth 
yard. 

Of the other sights of Pistoja, certainly first in 
importance Is the frieze of the Ospedale del Ceppo. 
Stretching for several rods above the six medallioned 
arches of the long arcade of the building's face, and 
fresh and beautiful under Its glazing, this frieze is a 
glory of terra-cotta modeling and coloring. There 
are more than eighty figures in the whole piece. They 
are arranged in groups representing works of charity, 
among them the gift of drink to the thirsty, food 
to the starving, lodgment to the pilgrim, burial to 
the dead. Between the groups are larger single 
figures of the personified Virtues, while separating 
the six arches of the fagade, and at its ends, are seven 
great medallions representing religious scenes. 
Whether the work be of the della Robbias or not — 
the PIstojese attribute It to Giovanni — it is one well 
worthy of their name. 

This meager account of Pistoja sights must suf- 
fice. Her streets are clean and animate with life. 
She does not belie her reputation for Industry and 



330 Florentine Excursions 

business initiative. But these do not particularly 
add to her charm. Sleepiness and medievalism are 
more sought for by the visitor to Italy than the 
Italian version of our own success. We pass Turin 
and Milan rapidly, to tarry in Florence and Siena. 
And so I should advise more hours or days in Prato 
or Lucca than in Pistoja. For all I know, Lucca 
may do a great deal more business than Pistoja. 
She is more than twice as large, and her name is 
strongly suggestive of high, slender bottles in the 
grocer's window. But she herself seems old and 
quiet and very beautiful. 

IV. LUCCA 

At the Pistoja station we made a trifling slip in 
the carrying out of our schedule of travel. We 
boarded a train going the wrong way. We got out 
at the first stop, but found we had some little time 
for observation of station, side-tracks, and switch- 
signals, before another train would come along with 
engine at the proper end. The station happened 
to be one which is the getting-off place for visitors 
to certain springs and baths in the mountains near by, 
and is besieged by the many hotel and pension and 
livery touts incidental to such places. We were evi- 
dently among the first of the season's visitors. At 
sight of us descending from the train a lust of blood 
seized them. But when time went on, and we did 
not issue from the little station waiting-room to be 
torn apart by them, consternation reigned. We 
could hear the murmurs of our besiegers. 



Lucca 331 

" Are they never coming out ! " 
" What unusually extraordinary forestieri ! " 
It was like showing a pair of early Christian mar- 
tyrs to the lions and then snatching them back. But 
our train came at last. And we set out through 
the little plots of corn and beans bounded by trees 
and vines. Tall, slim cannae were growing along 
the water ditches. Everything was green and fresh. 
The sun was bright and warm, but there was a cool- 
ing breeze. The little fields had for immediate 
background the rounded Pistojese hills and moun- 
tains, with their sprinkling of villas and old towers 
and pavilioned hotel resorts. In the distance, and 
closing the longer vistas, we had glimpses of the 
high Apuan Alps. Sometimes we skirted the bases 
of real mountains, and near Pescia we crossed the 
river of the same name to escape the roughness of 
these Apennine outflanks. Then our omnibus train 
ambled on through the broad valley of the river, 
until finally the host of flat-topped, square towers 
of Lucca came into sight, with a group of extraor- 
dinary great peaks in the background. These peaks, 
though dimmed and softened by distance, seemed 
of a boldness and apparent impregnability hardly 
surpassed by a Tyrolean or Swiss group of 
summits. 

Lucca has too much in it, there is too much of it, 
to describe it in any detail in such a mere sketch as 
this. The picture must be one of the most fleeting 
impressionism; an impression of a dream place of 
highcampanile and many-columned, sculptured church 
fronts; of little green trees growing and beckoning 



332 



Florentine Excursions 



high in the air on the summit of an old square tower 
of romance, and of a marble figure forever asleep 
in a great cool church of her who once smiled down 
from the parapet of that high tower of the proud 
Guinigi. In this picture, too, there must be quiet, 
pigeon-haunted piazzas, bounded by arcaded shops 
and connected by antiquated tortuous streets that 
lead you to utter confusion, that does not matter in 




"Until finally the host of flat-topped, square towers of Lucca 
came into sight." 

the least. For, wherever you go, there is something 
more to add to the sweet dream. 

And how fit it is that this old-world place should 
be completely inclosed by low, bastioned walls, with 
dry moat without, and broad, grassy, tree-grown 
bank within. We walked slowly around the entire 
city on this fascinating promenade, looking now 
down into the medley of crowded houses, now 
broadly across the red-tiled roofs to the scattered 
score of lifting towers, and now away from the city 



Lucca 



333 



out over the flat valley and plain to the distant high, 
blue mountains. In the moat below a troop of 
black-gowned seminarists were at simple play; along 
the white roads, radiating away into invisibility, carts 
and wagons slowly moved; in the flat fields a few 
cattle grazed, and on the moat's outer edge a uni- 
formed oflicer made his canter of exercise. 

We were loth to surrender our picture of Lucca 
whole for the closer examination of even the most 




" How fit it is that this old-world place should be completely 
inclosed by low bastioned walls., with dry moat without, and 
broad, grassy, tree-grown bank within." 

beautiful bits of the mosaic. But when in our drift- 
ing we finally found ourselves in the quiet little 
Piazza San Martino, under the high, many-columned 
campanile of the cathedral, we went in to see that 
most beautiful single thing in Lucca, Jacopo della 
Quercia's gravestone of Ilaria. But first we had 



334 Florentine Excursions 

our fill of tiie beauties and curiosities of the cathedral 
facade. It is a wonderful Romanesque church 
front, with its three-arched loggia, its triple series 
of open galleries, its many antique short columns, its 
striking sculptures, and na'iVe ornamentation. 

The interior, nearly three hundred feet long and 
a hundred feet high, is impressive and beautiful, and 
contains a number of choice things. Most mem- 
orable is the llaria tomb. This marble effigy on 
its lifted bed, with its garlanded putti and quaint 
little watchdog, is of remarkable delicacy and grace 
of modeling, and utterly expressive of tenderness and 
repose. The pillowed head, high-ruffed and fil- 
leted, with its sweet face, the lightly folded hands, 
the faintly outlined form under the soft draperies, 
all make it a thing of everlasting beauty, probably 
the most beautiful tomb of its type in Italy. It at 
least vies with the Guidarelli monument in Ravenna 
for this distinction. 

Lucca's most celebrated relic, the wooden Volto 
Santo, is inclosed in an elaborate small tabernacle or 
chapel (near the middle of the left aisle), callec^Tl 
Tempietto, which was specially built for it by Matjfeo 
Civitali. The relic is an ornamented wooden cro'ss, 
with a face of Christ painted on it. The face is a 
strange one, strongly suggestive of Byzantine origin, 
or at least influence. It is kept veiled in its shrine, ex- 
cept on certain rare occasions. The myth accounting 
for the existence and presence here of the relic ac- 
credits its making partly to the hand of St. Nicode- 
mus, and partly to some divine interference, and in- 
cludes a curious tale of its travels and adventures. 



Lucca 



335 



After its making it lay long hidden, " till in 782 a 
Piedmontese bishop found it by means of a vision, and 
put it aboard ship and abandoned it to the sea. Cast 




The Duomo and Campanile of Lucca. 

hither and thither in the waves, the ship at last came 
ashore at Luna, where the Bishop of Lucca was stay- 
ing, in the summer heat. So, led by God, he would 



336 Florentine Excursions 

have borne it to Lucca. But the people of Luna, 
who had heard of its sanctity, objecting, it was 
placed in a cart drawn by two white oxen, and, as 
it had been abandoned by the sea, so now it was 
given to the world. But the oxen, who, in fact, 
came from the fields of Lucca, returned thither, to 
the disgust of the people of Luna, and to the great 
and holy joy of the Bishop of Lucca." 

Near II Tempietto is a statue of St. Sebastian, by 
Civitali, and in the right transept of the church are 
several other pieces by the same sculptor, who is 
Lucca's most famous artist. The church contains a 
number of interesting pictures, the most notable 
among which is a Madonna with Saints Stephen 
and John the Baptist, by Fra Bartolommeo. It is 
held by students to be one of the finest works of this 
master. 

In the ancient but much made-over church of San 
Giovanni, just off the cathedral piazza, the old 
woman caretaker would let us look at nothing un- 
adorned with the hall-mark of age. A few columns 
from the Roman church that originally stood here, 
and a great font sunk in a patterned marble floor, 
a veritable duocento plunge bath, In the old baptis- 
try, to which the Lucchese generations of a thou- 
sand years or longer came for the sprinkling that 
opened Heaven's gates to them : these were what we 
saw of San Giovanni. 

In San Frediano, far across the town to the north, 
and hard by the grass-topped ramparts, we did bet- 
ter. It was rather dark here for the pictures, of 
which none, perhaps, is of unusual distinction; but 



Lucca 337 

It was not too dark to see well the interesting ancient 
mosaic (restored) outside on the fagade, and the 
great marble font within, very old and primitively- 
sculptured. In the chapel of the Holy Sacrament 
we saw on the altar another sculpture by Jacopo 
della Querela, a Madonna and Saints In relief, and 
in the chapel of St. Zita we saw the tomb of that 
canonized housemaid of Lucca, who Is at once the 
type and glory of the Lucchese folk. San Fredl- 
ano's campanile is one of the highest and best among 
all the many of Lucca, and Its fagade is as impressive 
In Its way as that of the cathedral, or as that of the 
extraordinary, much-repaired false front of San 
Michele. 

Most of the churches of Lucca are of very ancient 
foundation, but of much medieval and modern patch- 
ing. San Michele is an excellent example. Its his- 
tory of building and rebuilding covers more than 
a thousand years, for its beginning goes back to the 
ninth century, and its last extensive repairing oc- 
curred in the nineteenth. In Its devotion to short- 
columned galleries on Its fagade it is more Pisan than 
anything Pisa can boast of, for two stories of these 
galleries are carried right on up into the air far 
above the roof of the nave. The architect aban- 
doned all reality in order to Indulge a too pretentious 
aspiration. 

On the wall angle to the right of the central door 
of San Michele Is a statue of the Madonna by CIvI- 
tali, and in the loggia of the Palazzo Pretorio, across 
the piazza, Is a statue of the artist himself. 

In San Romano, near the Piazza Napoleone, there 



338 



Florentine Excursions 



is a strange tomb monument of Civitali's making. 
It stands just behind the high altar, and is the monu- 
ment of the martyred St. Romanus. The youthful 
figure of the saint, in painted alabaster, lies in a niche 
under an inscription, with a pitying Christ and two 
cherubim heads in a flat lunette above. The recum- 




San Michele in Lucca. 

bent figure is modeled in high relief, and seems con- 
tinually on the point of rolling out of its shallow 
niche. It is also contorted rather distressfully in 
order to show as much of itself as possible. However, 
despite the unhappy position and apparently con- 
stantly Imminent catastrophe, the figure has much 
beauty. 

Another of Civitali's colored pieces, an Assump- 
tion of the Madonna, is to be found in the museum 
in the Palazzo Provinciale on the Piazza Napoleone. 



Lucca 339 

In this museum also are two pictures of Fra Bar- 
tolommeo, one very famous, as well as a number of 
others of some interest. 

In trying to come back to the center of town from 
San Frediano, we took, by good fortune, a wrong 
way. It brought us under that tower whose forested 
summit — one tree and a bush are forest enough for 
a tower's top — is so conspicuous in any general view 
of the town. The building above which it rises is 
one of the palaces of the ancient great family of 
Lucca, the Guinigi. It was a Guinigi to whom the 
beautiful Ilaria had been married but a year before 
her death. And it was a Guinigi who discovered 
and became patron of and gave opportunity to that 
extraordinary youth of Lucca, who became its great- 
est warrior, indeed, one of the greatest in all time in 
all Italy. This was Castruccio Castracani, who gave 
the Florentines the most disastrous beating they ever 
suffered, and who became lord of Pisa, and, indeed, 
of all Tuscany, and aspired even to be the very ruler 
of Rome. 

The history of Lucca in that most animated and 
picturesque of all its historical periods, the first quar- 
ter of the fourteenth century, is simply the story 
of the varying, but mostly ascending, fortunes of 
Castracani and his Guinigi adherents. And so our 
brief contemplation of the exterior of the old Guinigi 
palace and its verdurous tower at the end of a full 
day was a fitting close to our sightseeing in Lucca. 
It was, too, a proper introduction to the turning of 
our attention to Pisa, whose history so interlocks 
with that of Lucca. 



340 Florentine Excursions 

V. PISA 

A thousand years ago Pisa was a great city, and 
immensely more important than it is now. And a 
thousand years before that it had made a decent 
beginning as a Roman settlement, provided with all 
those inevitable architectural accompaniments of 
temples, theaters, and arches, whose remains come to 
be the very commonplaces of Italian travel. Even 
two thousand years of history lose some of their 
thrill when they are faced too often; and the Amer- 
ican traveler, so quickly adaptable and swift of com- 
prehension, soon finds himself content with the same 
adjectives and exclamations under the crumbling 
ruins of a Roman arch of Hadrian as at home he 
would use in face of the dilapidated homestead cabin 
of the first settler on the town-site. He simply takes 
centuries for units instead of years, and goes un- 
concernedly ahead with his sightseeing. And Pisa 
he has known for too long as the home of the Lean- 
ing Tower to be seduced away from the immediate 
seeing of this pictured wonder of the school geogra- 
phies by any account, ever so compact, of the city's 
adventures during two thousand years of active life. 

As Pisa is situated on, or at least near, the sea, it 
may be taken for granted that some of these ad- 
ventures were maritime; as, indeed, they were, to 
the intimate knowledge of Genoa and Venice and 
Sicily, and even of the pagans in distant Tunis. And 
as most adventures of olden time arose from duties 
of self-defense or aspirations of aggression, it may 
likewise be assumed with confidence — a confidence 



Pisa 341 

justified by most impressive facts — that Pisa played 
its part in the various internal and exotic wars that 
touched her interests in those old days. And by 
the end of this ruminating our traveler would find 
his carriage, taken at the railway station, already 
depositing him in front of his long-cherished Lean- 
ing Tower in that distant field of the Four Glories 
of Pisa, the Piazza del Duomo. 

It was in her greatest days that Pisa built for her- 
self the Four Glories. They commemorate not only 
the piety of the Pisa of eight hundred years ago, 
but also her prowess and her pride. For they con- 
tain in the way of numerous antique pillars and 
saintly relics much booty of Pisa's great campaigns, 
and their magnificence was beyond that of any other 
Italian city's aspiration. Indeed, there is no equiva- 
lent group to-day in any other Italian city of Pisa's 
size, or several times its size. Nor anywhere else 
in Italy can the visitor see so easily and so tranquilly 
all that is most worth seeing of a city. For one 
might go from Pisa without visiting any other part 
of it than the isolated churchyard field of the Duomo 
and yet suffer afterward no too serious pangs of un- 
seized opportunity. There are numerous churches 
in Pisa, all of more or less interest in structure or 
contents; there is a civic museum (in the cloisters of 
San Francesco), with paintings and sculpture of 
value. There is the irregular Piazza dei Cavalieri, 
with its church and its palace of San Stefano, and 
its notoriety derived from the Hunger Tower, now 
long destroyed, where a precious Ghibelline arch- 
bishop starved Guelph Ugolino and his sons. Dante, 



342 Florentine Excursions 

the poet, and Carpeaux, the sculptor, have told the 
story each with his own tools. And there is the 
Ponte di Mezzo, where of old the game of mimic 
war was played that helped fit the Pisan citizens to 
be the Pisan men-at-wars. Finally, there are " lit- 
erary landmarks," haunts of Shelley and Byron and 
others, to be looked up. But all of these, if time be 
short, should not lessen by an hour the visit to the 
Four Glories. Especially as that most interesting 
and fascinating little jewel-case of a chapel, Santa 
Maria della Spina, on the river bank, between the 
Ponte Solferino and the Ponte Mezzo, can be seen 
on the way from the station to the Duomo, or 
vice versa. This pause at the little chapel " for the 
sailors that go to sea " will let one see at the same 
time the graceful curve of the Arno, and some of 
the picturesque palace fagades along its right 
bank. 

One of the beauties of the English cathedrals is 
that derived from their setting, their quiet isolation 
in the green close that guards them from the press 
and noise of the city streets. And conversely, this 
lack of churchyard is one of the misfortunes of most 
of the great continental churches. Pisa's duomo has 
the advantage of isolation and remoteness from the 
city life; the Piazza del Duomo is really a great 
churchyard, holding easily, besides the cathedral, the 
baptistry, the Campo Santo, and the campanile or 
" leaning tower." 

Beginning with this last I hasten to say that actual 
acquaintance discovers it to be less a curiosity and 
more an object of beauty than one thinks to find. 



Pisa 343 

Not that it does not bear out satisfactorily its repu- 
tation for eccentricity; it leans; it leans amazingly; 
but its beautiful color, its successive wreaths of colon- 
nades, and its aspect of grace and lightness despite 
the considerable diameter and simple cylindrical out- 
line, give one the gratifying surprise of discovering 
beauty where only bizarrerie was expected. From 
the summit, reached by a wearying climb of nearly 
three hundred steps, two things can be well appre- 
ciated, namely, the rare beauty of the Pisan moun- 
tain landscape, and the dizzying overhang that four- 
teen feet out of the perpendicular gives a tower only 
thirteen times that many feet high. 

Turning from the campanile we may enter the 
cathedral by the old bronze doors of Bormanus, with 
their quaint picturing of Bible stories. Or we may 
walk the quiet outer length of the great building 
and enter by one of the later but still respectably old 
bronze doors of the splendid fagade. This is one 
of the most beautiful church fronts in Italy. Its 
beauty comes not alone from the majestic lines, the 
decorating galleries, and the wealth of colored 
columns, but as well from the richness of the very 
stone itself. The whole cathedral is built of white 
marble, interspersed by lines and bars of black, and 
greenish. Perhaps, indeed, the most beautiful mem- 
ory of Pisa's duomo and tower and baptistry is that 
of their white walls glowing like old ivory under the 
sun of early morning or late afternoon. With the 
purple and lavender of the mountains behind them 
they make an ineffaceable picture. 

Within the cathedral the impression is one of 



344 Florentine Excursions 

beauty and spaciousness. The church is more than 
three hundred feet long by one hundred feet wide, 
and contains a forest of antique columns, booty of 
conquest. The choir is impressive, the nave is high 
and flat-ceilinged, and the aisles vaulted. There are 
pictures by Sodoma, Andrea del Sarto, and others, 
and sculptures and carving by Giovanni da Bologna, 
Matteo Civitali, and Giovanni Pisano. This Pisano 
was the son of that more famous Niccolo, sculptor 
of the Baptistry pulpit, and Pisa's greatest native 
name in the history of art. In the dome and else- 
where there are some old mosaics by Cimabue and 
his followers, and, hanging by its long chain, the 
great bronze lamp whose pendulum swinging meant, 
if tradition be true, so much to Galileo. 

The Baptistry, like the Duomo, is all marble. It 
has a superb domed top, and an ornamentation of 
gallery and columns like that of the tower and ca- 
thedral. It is nearly two hundred feet high, with 
a diameter half as great, and stands in complete 
isolation, a condition permitting all of its grandeur 
and beauty to reveal themselves. 

The Baptistry contains Niccolo Pisano's earliest 
and greatest triumph, the carved pulpit familiar by 
picture and description to every student of the Italian 
Renaissance. For this pulpit, carved in 1260, was 
almost the first tangible expression of the new feeling 
and manner. The sculptor's other famous pulpit, 
that in the cathedral at Siena (wrought with the help 
of his son Giovanni and certain students) was done 
seven or eight years later. 

Besides the pulpit, the beautiful great marble font, 



Pisa 345 

seven hundred years old, Is the principal object of 
interest in the wide, high, echoing room. Of a 
sudden a sonorous ringing harmony of tones sweeps 
down from the great hollow of the dome and fills 
the whole space of the building with rhythmic 
vibration. It is as if one were hearing played a 
great calliope or organ of an octave's range in 
some mighty cavern of a thousand echoes. The 
caretaker, leaning carelessly against the font's edge, 
hardly moves his lips to do this; or rather, to stimu- 
late the speaking walls and resonant chamber of the 
dome to do it. 

Finally, there Is still to see that strangest, most 
holy, and, to many persons, most beautiful glory 
of all the quadruple group, the Campo Santo: low 
arcaded quadrangle, built around Its plot of holy 
soil, brought In fifty shiploads from Jerusalem. The 
quadrangle has, roundly, four hundred feet of length 
and one hundred and fifty of width, and both with- 
out and within has a continuous arcade or cloister. 
These arcades are a wonderful gallery of frescoes 
and old sculptures. Many of the frescoes are fad- 
ing badly, but of some both the lines and colors are 
still well preserved. There Is much uncertainty con- 
cerning the authorship of these fourteenth and fif- 
teenth century frescoes, especially of the most Inter- 
esting ones, such as The Triumph of Death, with 
its strange fancies of conception, and the Last Judg- 
ment, with its masterly execution of figures. The 
whole series on the north wall Is definitely ascribed, 
however, to Benozzo GozzoH, and several pictures 
in it reveal much of the joy and grace of this artist's 



346 Florentine Excursions 

work in the little chapel of the Medici palace (Pa- 
lazzo Riccardi) in Florence. 

There are three chapels attached to the quad- 
rangle, which also contain some frescoes and tombs. 
And there are various curiosities that one looks at 
with interest, among them the great chains that 
closed the ancient harbor of Pisa against enemies. 
But more than curiosities, sculptures, and frescoes, 
one sees and feels and surrenders to the peace and 
ancientness and persisting rehgious faith of this 
sanctuary of old bones and holy soil. It is an artis- 
tic expression of belief that makes an almost irre- 
sistible appeal. To be sure, the day and one's own 
mood of the moment count for much in the matter. 
Under a soft, clear sky, with the glancing light of the 
sun touching the green inclosure and the old grave- 
stones under foot; alone, and glad to be alone and 
quiet; then the Campo Santo is all beauty and 
rest. 

This ended our excursion. We went back to 
Florence and to the little villa on the hill-side by 
the straightest way. That is, directly up the Arno, 
past Empoli and Signa. This way is some twenty 
miles shorter than that by Lucca and Pistoja. When 
we got in sight of the big red orcio on the villa 
roof our homecoming greetings began. Marina was 
waving and smiling to us from the roof, Beppi from 
the road, and Maria from the gate. And we soon 
convinced ourselves of what seemed the certain con- 
viction of the servants, that we had had a provi- 
dential return from a long and hazardous and won- 
derful journey, which had extended over an inde- 



Pisa 347 

terminable period of time. The candles, which had 
been steadily burning In the little shrine on the house- 
corner for our safe-keeping, were nearly burned out, 
and the soup only awaited serving. It was the high- 
est of high time for our returning. 



CHAPTER XXI 
BOOKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

POOR over-written Florence! Not at all. It 
is simply a matter of interest. Can there be 
an over-interest in Florence? Can there be too 
many people wanting to come to see it, and feel it: 
people needing, therefore, some kind of guiding 
hand to and through and round about it? Florence, 
and what it stands for, and most beautifully reveals, 
are an abiding interest with a great many people, 
and so it is much written about. It would not be 
if the books were not wanted. 

Some of them are better than others; some are 
very good, some just good, some poor; I suppose 
some are downright bad. But I am no judge of 
books, perhaps: certainly no hanging judge, like 
George Moore, for example. " ' Diana of the 
Crossways,' " says Moore — of course, this is not a 
book about Florence; it is just an example of the 
way a hanging judge executes a book — " ' Diana of 
the Crossways,' " says Moore, in the " Confessions 
of a Young Man," " I liked better [than " Rhoda 
Fleming"], and had I had absolutely nothing to do 
I might have read it to the end." 

But I am not a young man, and my account of 
the books about Florence, which is not an account 

348 



Books About Florence 349 

at all, but simply the naming of some titles with 
the swiftest and most casual of annotations, will con- 
tain no such spicy judgings as Moore's. This list 
is only introduced with the thought of giving a little 
matter-of-fact help to the inquiring actual or the 
dreaming possible first-tripper. Our own pressing 
need of orientation when we first came to try to 
see and know a little of Florence made us pay some 
special attention to the book-guides, and this need 
will certainly be that of others in our place. 

It would be of a certain interest to try a rough 
classification of the books about Florence. But it 
is hardly necessary for such a slight performance 
as this. One might group these book-guides into 
the " regulars," as Baedeker, Murray, Meyer, Hare, 
Horner, Grant Allen (with apologies to the shade 
of that pridefully irregular regular!), — the "Walks 
in Florence," " Talks in Florence," " Literary Land- 
marks of Florence," " Mornings in Florence," 
" Masterpieces of Florence," and the several just 
Florences: and into the " irregulars," or specials, as 
the " Florentine Palaces," " Florentine Heraldry," 
" Florence of Landor," " Florence of the Brown- 
ings," " Echoes of Old Florence," " Legends of 
Florence," " Dante and His Beloved City," and the 
like. Then there are the standard treatises on art, 
as the books of Liibke, Crowe and Cavacaselle, Be- 
renson, and others: and the special historical and 
critical accounts of the art and poetry of Florence 
alone, its painters and sculptors, architects and poets, 
and the special biographies of these artists and 
writers. 



350 Books About Florence 

Then there is a collection of politico-historical 
treatments of Florence alone, or of Tuscany, or Nor- 
thern Italy, or of all Italy: and the histories of spe- 
cial periods, and the biographies of particular rulers, 
statesmen, and warriors. 

There is the group of travels and sketches in Italy, 
with more or less description and account of Florence 
and Tuscany; and the group devoted to accounts 
of the life of the people, their temperament, and 
ways. And there is, finally, the group of " first 
impressions " of Florence and " letters " from Flor- 
ence, a great group ever dying steadily at one end 
and growing vigorously at the other. 

But not finally, either, for there is one other group, 
by no means to be overlooked : that one which in- 
cludes " Romola," " Signa," " The Forerunner," 
" The Marble Faun," " Casa Guidi Windows," and 
the others. These are the stories and poems that 
have had Florence and neighboring Tuscany for 
their setting: books that come with refreshment and 
joy to the weary peruser of Talks and Walks and 
Echoes and Impressions. They tell more, perhaps, 
or at least leave more and better echoes and im- 
pressions, more vivid pictures and memories of Flor- 
ence and her great ones, than any of the catalogues 
or manuals of the other groups. 

Of all these groups, my few references are chiefly 
to those immediately orienting and guiding helps 
(written in English, or translated) that the traveler 
on his first visit to Florence needs in his hands, the 
read-as-you-walk books. But there is noted also a 
fair number of orienting books for the fireside 



Books About Florence 351 

traveler to Florence. There is a certain kind of 
book, of which this present one of mine may be an 
example, which tries to be a little more than a guide 
in the street, but something less than a manual for 
the class-room; that hopes to be useful, and perhaps 
interesting, both to the actual visitor and those other 
more numerous ones that can only come in the spirit. 
For that group my list is more nearly complete than 
for any other. 

The actual visitor will need to own personally 
some compact guide to the streets and palaces, 
churches and galleries; but he can easily refer to any 
of the other books in my list by having resort to 
the library facilities that Florence affords. He can 
do this most conveniently, perhaps, by subscribing 
for the term of his stay to Viesseux's circulating li- 
brary (No. 5, Via Vecchieti, just off the Piazza 
Vittorio Emanuele; five lire a month for three books 
out at a time; less for one). This unusual lending 
library is certainly the best of its kind on the con- 
tinent. The three large public libraries of Florence 
are the Nazionale (under the Gallery in the Uffizi 
Palace), the Marucelliani (Via Cavour, near the 
Palazzo Riccardi), and the Laurenziana (over the 
cloisters of San Lorenzo church). The Laurenzi- 
ana contains only codices and MSS., and is limited 
in its use, therefore, to the scholar and bibliophile. 
But the other two can readily be made use of by 
any resident or visitor seeking current as well as 
older literature in Florence. The Nazionale, con- 
taining over 300,000 volumes, is open from 10 a.m. 
to 4 p.m., and with no introduction, subscription, or 



352 Books About Florence 

other formality than the filling out of a request blank 
handed one by the doorkeeper as one enters, one 
may obtain and consult in the reading-room any 
book desired. If one wishes to take books out of 
this library, it is necessary to fill out a blank (ob- 
tained on request to the librarian in charge of the 
reading-room), which needs also the indorsement of 
the American Consul. Books can be consulted at 
the excellent Marucelliana library with the same ab- 
sence of difficulty. A first-class book-shop is Seeber's 
on the Via Tornabuoni. 



LIST OF BOOKS ABOUT FLORENCE 

(Only books or translations in English are included; dates are 
usually of last editions; English editions of American books, 
and vice versa, are usually not noted.) 

Addison, Julia de Wolf : The Art of the Pitti Palace. 
(1904, Boston.) 
A brief history of the palace and of the Pitti family, and 
a good account, descriptive, historical, and critical, of the 
pictures. Illustrated. 

Allen, Grant: The EUROPEAN TouR. (1899, London.) 
Chapters 13 and 14 about Florence; lively reading for 
a guide-book; nearly as positive and insistent as Ruskin. 

Allen, Grant: Florence. (1906, London.) 

Grant Allen's Florence is exclusively the pictures in 
Florence. 

Anderson, Isabella M.: TusCAN Folklore and Sketches". 
(1905, London.) 
Music, folk lore, bits of Tuscan life, three literary 
sketches, and a couple of translated bits of Ada Negri. 

Anonymous: In a Tuscan Garden. (1902, London.) 
Account of garden, household incidents, and experience 
with servants; autumn and winter in Tuscany; as much 
about other things as about the garden. 

Artistical Guide to Florence. ( 1909, Florence.) 

Berenson, Bernh: Florentine Painters of the Re- 
naissance. (1904, New York.) 
" Florentine painting between Giotto and Michel 
Angelo contains the names of such artists as Orcagna, 

353 



354 List of Books About Florence 

Masaccio, Fra Filippo, Pollaiuolo, Verrochio, Leonardo, 
and Botticelli. Put beside these the greatest names in 
Venetian art, the Vivarini, the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, 
and Tintoretto. The difference is striking. The sig- 
nificance of the Venetian names is exhausted with their 
significance as painters. Not so with the Florentines. 
Forget that they were painters, they remain great sculp- 
tors; forget that they were sculptors, and still they remain 
architects, poets, and even men of science." 

Blashfield, Edwin H. and Evangeline JV.: Italian Cities, 
2 vols. (1903, New York.) 
Beautiful color sketches and good reading; in volume I 
about 85 pages of Florence and in volume II 25 pages; 
all interesting. 

Broun, J. Wood: The Builders of Florence. (1907, 
Florence. ) 
An admirable account of Florentine architecture, beauti- 
fully and informingly illustrated. 

Carmichael, Montgomery: In Tuscany. (1901, London.) 
Interesting sketches from first-hand Icnowledge, of 
Tuscan types of people, the Tuscan language and tempera- 
ment, Tuscan pallone, the Italian lottery, and several 
towns (Pisa, Lucca, Leghorn, Volterra, La Verna, Camal- 
doli, Montecatini, etc.) Good reading. 

Carocci, Guido: Bygone Florence. Translated by H. G. 
Huntington. ( 1899, Florence.) 
An admirable, all too short account of the old walls and 
city gates, the old mint, old market, the fulling-mills, the 
bridges as they were, etc. Chapter XII, called " Heir- 
looms," points out many of the scattered relics of old 
Florence in the way of doorways, parts of palaces and 
towers still to be seen in various parts of the city. 



List of Books About Florence 355 

Cartwright, Julia: The Painters of Florence. (1901, 
London.) 
Twenty-eight Florentine artists, told about, in a way. 

Cellini, Benvenuto: Autobiography (translated by J. A. 
Symonds, London), and Treatises on Goldsmithing 
AND Sculpture (translated by C. R. Ashbee, 1899, 
London). 

Two highly entertaining books. 

Cole, Selina: First Impressions of Florence. (1906, 
Liverpool.) 
Not worse than usual. 

Cratvford, Mabel: Life in Tuscany. (1859, London.) 
The people, their manners, religion, society ; Florentine 
scenes and amusements; Viareggio and Montecatini. 
Interesting. 

Crowe, J. A., and Cavalcaselle, G. B.: A New History of 
Painting in Italy, 3 vols. (1864-1866, London.) 
Standard. 

Cruttiuell, Maude A.: A Guide to the Paintings in the 
Churches and Minor Museums of Florence. 
(1908, London, and New York.) 
Catalogue, and quotations from Vasari. 

Deecke, W.: Italy, A Popular Account of the Coun- 
try, Its People and Its Institutions. Translated by 
H. A. Nesbitt. (1904, London.) 

Geography, geology, climate, hydrography, plants and 
animals, people, political institutions, church. Especially 
strong on topography, geography, and geology. 

Gardner, Ed. G.: The Story of Florence. (1901, 
London.) 
Good compact history and general guide. 



356 List of Books About Florence 

Goff, R. C. and Clarissa: Florence and Some Tuscan 
Cities. (1905, London.) 
A collaboration of painter husband and writer wife, 
the husband contributing the more interesting part of the 
book; reproductions in color of paintings of churches, 
interiors, bridges, scenes in Florence, Prato, Pistoja, Lucca, 
Pisa, and Viareggio. 

Hare, A. J. C, and Baddeley, St. Clair: FLORENCE, seventh 

edition. (1907, London.) 

The most compactly complete handbook of Florence. 

The quotations make it also a library of criticism and of 

epigram and poetry, with Florence and things Florentine 

for subject. 

Harwood, Edith: Notable Pictures in Florence. 
(1905, London, and New York.) 
A list of the more notable pictures of eighty-nine artists, 
arranged under the artists' names, telling where the 
pictures arc, and giving bits of history and critical esti- 
mates of them, and bits of biography of the artists. 
Useful. 

Hewlett, Maurice: The Road in Tuscany, 2 vols. 
(1904, London.) 
Chapter VII of Volume I is a delightful impression- 
istic sketch of Florence. Chapter XII is a clever attack 
on the making of galleries by taking pictures out of their 
setting and assembling them ; as in the Uffizi, where there 
are " leagues of imprisoned pictures torn, all of them, 
from their sometime homes and flowering places and pinned 
to these walls. The Uffizi may be considered as one 
vast shambles where 2000 Madonnas and 2000 Bimbi are 
strangling each other." In Volume I are accounts of 
Lucca, Pistoja, Prato; in Volume II is an account of Pisa. 



List of Books About Florence 357 

Hewlett, Maurice: Earthwork out of Tuscany. ( 1907, 

London.) 

Beautiful; the best of Hewlett's writing, say many. 

" I, a northern image maker, have set up my conceits of 

their informing spirits, of the spirits of themselves, their 

soil, and the fair works that they accomplished." 

Hooker, Katherine: Wayfarers in Italy. (1902, New 

York.) 
A chapter called " Sojourning in Florence " gives a 
chatty personal account of a short stay. 

Horner, Susan and Johanna: Walks IN Florence, 2 vols. 
( 1884, London.) 
The most elaborate and detailed Florence guide. 

Howells, W. D.: Tuscan Cities. (Many editions; it is 
in Tauchnitz.) 
In it a delightful and informing chapter, " A Florentine 
Mosaic." 

Hutton, Ediuard: Florence and Northern Tuscany. 
(1907, London.) 
A literary guide-book; information, and appreciation 
with some floridity of style; beautifully illustrated; in- 
teresting and useful. 

Hutton, Edivard: Country Walks About Florence. 

(1908, London.) 

The only thing in English covering the ground 

(Carocci; " Dintorni di Firenze," 2 vols., unfortunately 

not translated, is the really complete account) ; with map 

and illustrations. Useful. 

Hutton, Edward: Italy and the Italians. (1902, 
London.) 
Word sketches of Italian cities (two chapters given to 
Florence) and Italian life and customs. 



358 List of Books About Florence 

Mutton, Laurence: Literary Landmarks of Florence. 
(1897, New York.) 
Where Dante, Galileo, Savonarola, Alfierl, Boccaccio, 
Landor, the Brownings, Dickens, Mark Twain, and 
ninety others lived or walked or talked in Florence. In- 
teresting and useful in trailing famous lions to their lairs. 

Hyett, Francis A.: Florence, Her History and Art. 
( 1903, London.) 
A recent history by a Cambridge University man, writ- 
ten for the general reader because the author thinks 
Villari's and Napier's books are too long and scholarly 
and Trollope's too long and flippant. 

John, Earl of Cork and Orrery: Letters FROM Italy in 
1754 and 1755. (1773, London.) 
Letters 7 and 8 and 10 to 17, composing most of the 
book, are from Florence, and give an interesting and lively 
picture of the Florence of those days. 

Lees, Dorothy N.: Tuscan Feasts and Tuscan Friends. 
( 1907, London.) 
Slight sketches of festas, people, and scenes about 
Florence. 

Leland, Chas. Godfrey: Legends of Florence. (1895, 
London.) 
Tales of the people about the churches, piazzas, bridges, 
palaces, etc. Very interesting. 

Lungo, Isidore del: Women of Florence. Translated 
by Mary Steegman. ( 1907, London.) 
A study of the influence of women on Florentine history 
during and prior to the cinque cente. 

Liibke, Wm.: History of Art. (1868, London.) 
Standard. 



List of Books About Florence 359 

MachiaveUi, Niccolo: History of Florence. Translated 
by N. H. Thomson, 2 vols. (In seven different editions.) 
Standard. 

McMalion, Anna B.: Florence in the Poetry of the 
Brownings. (1904, Chicago.) 
" Being a selection of the poems of Robert and E. B. 
Browning which have to do wath the history, the scenery, 
and the art of Florence." 

Murray, A. H. Hallani: accompanied by H. W. Nevinson 
and Montgomery Carmichael ; Sketches on the Old 
Road Through France to Florence. (1904, Lon- 
don.) 

Despite the heavy length of the caravan of title and 
author list, the book is anything but tedious. Chapters 
XI-XIII treat of Florence and near it. 

Napier, H. E.: Florentine History. (1864-7, 6 vols. 
London.) 
From the beginning up to the accession of Ferdinand 
HI, Grand Duke of Tuscany. 

Novi, Th.: Where the Masterpieces Hang in the 
Three Florentine Galleries. 
Ninetj'-one pictures selected as masterpieces and their 
numbers and positions in the galleries given. 

King, Bolton, and Okey, Thos.: Italy To-Day. (igoi, 
London.) 
Interesting account of political, religious, social, in- 
dustrial, and, to less extent, literary conditions of Italy. 

Oliphant, Miss: The Makers of Florence. (1883, 
London.) . 
Standard: Dante, Giotto, Arnolfo, Ghiberti, Brunel- 
leschi, Donatello, Savonarola, and the monks of San 
Marco. 



360 List of Books About Florence 

Perkins, C. C: Tuscan Sculptors, 2 vols. (1864, 
London.) 
Accounts biographic and critical. 

Perrens, F. T.: History of Florence, 1434-1531. (1892, 
London.) 
From the domination of the Medici to the fall of the 
Republic. The same author published in 1877-1883 a 
history of Florence from its origin to the rise of the 
Medici. He will publish no account of Florence after 
the Republic for " When Florence ceased to be a free 
town, a republic, a state, she ceased to have a history." 

Phillippi, A.: Florence. (No. IV in Famous Art Cities.) 
Translated by P. G. Konody. (1905, Florence, London, 
and New York.) 

Many illustrations; historical and art. 

Ross, Janet: Old Florence and Modern Tuscany. 
( 1904, London.) 
Good and reliable accounts of the " Misericordia," 
" Two Florentine Hospitals," " Popular Songs of Tus- 
cany," " Vintaging in Tuscany," " The Dove of Holy 
Saturday," and best of all, " Old Florence," an account 
of the Florentine Ghetto, now demolished. 

Ross, Janet: Florentine Palaces and Their Stories. 
( 1905, London.) 
Brief accounts of the history of the building and decora- 
tion of seventy-six palaces, and history of the families 
which owned them. 
Ross, Janet: Florentine Villas. (1901, London.) 

Interesting sketches of twenty-three important villas. 
Ruskin, John: MoRNiNGS IN FLORENCE. (1907, New 

York.) 
How to see as Ruskin saw; a small book but a driving 
one. 



List of Books About Florence 361 

Ruskin, John: Val D'Arno. (London.) 

Ten characteristically Ruskinian lectures on Tuscan 
art. 

Sanborn: About Dante and His Beloved Florence. 

(igoi, San Francisco.) 

Following Dante in Florence; his house, tower, seat, 

statue, portraits, quotations of appreciations of Dante ; 

brief biographical sketch; a little about his books; all 

slight and superficial, but earnest. 

Scaife, Walter B.: Florentine Life During the Re- 
naissance. ( 1893, Baltimore.) 
A university monograph, with characteristic marks of 
accuracy and thoroughness; government, public and 
private life ; education and intellectual life, religion, com- 
merce and industry, charities, amusements. Good. 

Scott, Leader: Echoes of Old Florence. (1894, 
Florence.) 
Historical sketches and legends of Florentine bridges, 
piazzas, palaces, churches, people. There are seventeen 
of these sketches, carefully gathered and fairly written. 

Scott, Leader: Tuscan Studies and Sketches. (1898, 
London.) 
Important and informing reading dug out of archives, 
MSS., and musty tomes. "A Library of Codices " (chap- 
ter n) is a good account of the Laurenziana library, a 
growth of four centuries from the foundation of Cosimo 
dei Medici. 
de Stendhal, Count: Rome, Naples and Florence. 
(1818, London.) 
Spicy and interesting observations of Florence in 1818. 

Symonds, A.: Renaissance in Italy. (1897, New 

York.) 
Standard history, finely written ; the men, the events. 



362 List of Books About Florence 

Trollope, Mrs.: A Visit to Italy. (1842, London.) 

Letters VI to XVII from and about Florence; spicy 
comment from a feminine point of view. 

Trollope, T. A.: TuscANY IN 1849 and in 1859. (1859, 
London.) 
How it looked then. 

Trollope, T. A.: History of the Commonwealth of 
Florence. Four volumes. ( 1865, London.) 

Villari, L.: Italian Life in Town and Country. 

(1902, London and New York.) 
The people, their home life, politics, religion, socialism, 
amusements, art, music, etc.; curiously dry for such an 
interesting subject. 

Villari, Pasquale: The Two First Centuries of Floren- 
tine History. Translated by Leonard Horner. Two 
vols. (1901, London.) 
Standard. 

Villari, Pasquale: The Life and Times of Machiavelli. 
Four volumes. (1883, London.) 
Standard. 

Villari, Pasquale: The Life and Times of Savonarola. 
Two volumes. (1863, London.) 
Standard. 

Whiting, Lillian: The Florence of Landor. (1905, 
Boston.) 
Interesting. 

Wills, Howel: Florentine Heraldry. (1901, London.) 

A monographic treatise of the make-up and character 

of Florentine coats-of-arms and stemmi in general, and 

then a descriptive list of the stemmi of all the Florentine 

families and the arms of the quarters of the city. Very 



List of Books About Florence 363 

brief sketches of the history of the principal families. A 
useful and interesting reference book, which would be 
more useful and interesting if illustrated. 

Zimmern, Helen: The Italy of the Italians. (1906, 
London.) 
Chapters on the king, the press, the literature, the 
painters, sculpture and architecture, play-houses, players 
and plays, science and inventions, philosophy, agrarian 
Italy, industry and commerce, underground Italy, music, 
and Italy at play. A large amount of reliable information 
compactly and interestingly put together. 



INDEX 



Accademia, 130 

Albertinelli, Mario, 125, 134 

Alessandri, Palazzo, 195 

Alfieri, 253 

Altoviti, 164 

Amidei, 164 

Ammanati, 143, 154 

Angelico, Fra, 120, 124, 134, 135, 

177, 180, 210 
Annunzio, Gabriele d', 17, 70 
Arcetri, 215 

Aixheological Museum, 240, 256 
Aretino, Spinello, 183 
Arnolfo, 76 

Baccio d'Agnolo, 81 

Badia, 91 

Badia (Fiesole), 210 

Bandinelli, B., 102, 123, 124, 140 

Baptistry, 83 

Barbadori, 165 

Bardi, 166 

Bargello, 145 

Bartolommeo, Fra, 120, 122, 124, 

134. 177, 336 
Belfredelli, 165 
Bellini, Giovanni, 120 
Bibbiena, 305 
Bicci, Neri dei, 173 
Bigallo, 86 
Boboli Gardens, 155 
Boccaccio, 18 
Bocklin, 212 
Bologna, Giovanni da, 84, 102, 

142, 143, 144, 148, 150, 229, 

344 
Books about Florence, 348 
Borgherini, 164, 198 



Borghese, 163 
Bormanus, 343 
Botticelli, Sandro, 94, 120, 124, 

135, 137, 155 
" Brocca," 19 
Browning, Mrs. E. B., 253, 

255 
Browning, Robert, 253 
Bryant, 254 
Brunelleschi, 76, 82, loi, 106, 

108, 148, 154, 162, 211 

Buggiano, 81 
Buonalenti, Bernardo, 67 
Buonarotti, 16 
Buondelmonte, 164 
Byron, 254 

Camaldoli (Casentino), 307 

Campanile, 85 

Canova, 171 

Capponcino, 70 

Capponi, 70, 165 

Caprino, Meo del, 68 

Careggi, 212 

Carmine, 92 

Carpaccio, 119, 124 

Cascine, 245 

Casentino, 290 

Badia a Prataglia, 309 

Bibbiena Fair, 305 

Camaldoli, 307 

Castles, 294, 302 

Churches, 299 

Conti Guidi, 294, 302 

La Verna, 309, 31a 

Moggiona, 307 

Poppi Castle, 302 

Santa Maria del Sasso, 311 



365 



366 



Index 



Casentino: 
Villages, 290 
Vineyards and fields, 295 
Castagno, Andrea del, 81, 120, 

124, 172 
Castel di Poggio, 201 
Castles, 138-166 
Cecconi, Eugenio, 136 
Cellini, Benvenuto, 109, 124, 144, 

148, 150, 155 
Cenacolo of Andrea del Cas- 
tagno, 172 
of Andrea del Sarto, 169 
of Domenico Ghirlandajo, 

172 

di Foligno, 175 

dei Ognissanti, 172 

of Raphael, 173 

di San Marco, 173, 178 

di San Salvi, 169 
Certosa, 222 
Chiesa, Villa, 70 
Cigoli, 67, 86 
Cimabue, 106, 133, 344 
Civitali, Matteo, 150, 334, 336, 

337, 338, 344 
Clough, 255 
Commodi, Andrea, 67 
Consuma Pass, 286, 290 
Cooper, Fenimore, 254 
Corno, 165 
Correggio, 122 
Corsini, 163 
Cosimo, Piero di, 125 
Covoni, 213 

Credi, Lorenzo di, 125, 135 
Cronaca, 132, 159 

Dandini, Piero, 67 
Dante, 252 

death mask, 149 
Delli, Dello, 106 
Desiderio. See Settignano 
Dickens, 254 
Dolci, Carlo, 133, 175 
Domenico di Michelino, 8i 



Donatello, 81, 83, 84, 85, 109, 
124, 132, 144, 147, 225, 321 
Duccio, 106 
Duoino, 76, 248 

(Fiesole), 209 

(Lucca), 333 

(Pisa), 343 

(Pistoja), 326 
Duomo Museum, 8a 
Diirer, 116, 122 
Duse, 17, 70 

Eliot, George, 253 

Excursions from Florence, 286 

Casentino, 290, 297 

Castel di Poggio, 201 

Certosa, 222 

Consuma Pass, 286, 290 

Fiesole, 207 

Impruneta, 225 

Lucca, 330 

Maimantile, 233 

Pisa, 340 

Pistoja, 323 

Prato, 315 

Settignano, 61 

Signa, 231 

Vallombrosa, 286 

Vincigliata, 201 

Fabriano, Gentile da, 133 
Farfani, Enrico, 137 
Ferroni, 160 
Festas, 247 

Fiesole, Giovanni Angelico da, 
120, 124, 134, 135, 177, i8o, 
210 
Fiesole, 207 

Badia, 210 

Caves, 208 

Duomo, 209 

Monte Ceceri, 208 

San Domenico, 210 

Villas, 2n 
Fiorentino, Rosso, 129 
Fiske, Willard, 254 



Index 



367 



Fortezza da Basso, 152 
Fortezza di San Giorgio, 152 
Francia, 122 
Frescobaldi, 165 

Gaddi, Agnolo, 81, 92, 147 
Gaddi, Taddeo, 100, 108 
Galileo, 218, 252 
Galleries. See Museums and 

Galleries 
Gallo, 217 
Gamberaia, 68 
Gandi, 205 
Gardens, 49 
George Eliot, 253 
Gerino da Pistoja, 173 
Ghetto, 241 
Ghiberti, 8r, 83, 84, 100, 124, 

148 
Ghirlandajo, Domenico, 93, 94, 

95, 104, 124, 133, 142, 160, 

172 
Ghirlandajo, Ridolfo, 321 
Giordano, Luca, 158 
Giorgione, 119, 124, 127 
Giottino, 86 
Giotto, 85, 100, 133 
Girolami, 164 
Gozzoli, Benozzo, 125, 157, 

345 
Gray, Thomas, 254 
Gruamons, 325 
Guarleone, 169 
Guercino, 122 
Guicciardini, 252 
Guidi, 294, 302 
Guinigi, 339 

Harvest times, 269 

Hawthorne, 19, 253 

Hazlitt, 255 

Holbein, n6 

Holy fire of the Pazzi, 162, 248 

Hotels and pensions, 3 

Housekeeping, 12, 30 

Hunt, Leigh, 254 



Ilaria, 334 

" H Palagio," 212 

Impruneta, 226 

Jameson, Mrs., 254 

Kauffmann, Angelica, 116 
Kranach, 122 

Lambertesca, 164 

Landor, 19, 212, 253, 255 

"La Primola," 213 

La Verna (Casentino), 309, 313 

Last Supper. See Cenacolo 

Le Brun, 116 

Lever, Charles, 254 

Lewes, George, 253 

Libraries, 351 

Laurenziana, no, 211, 351 

Marucelliana, 351 

Nazionale, 351 

Viesseux, 351 
Lippi, Fiiippino, 91, 92, 101, 

106, 116, 124, 323 
Lippi, Fillippo, 109, 121, 124, 

129, 134, 135. 321 
Loggia dei Lanzi, 144 
Loggia dei Rucellai, 161 
Longfellow, 255 
Lotti, 165 
Lowell, 254 
Luca van Leyden, 122 
Lucca, 330 

Duomo, 333 

Piazza San Martino, 333 

Palazzo Pretorio, 337 

Palazzo Provinciale, 338 

San Frediano, 336 

San Giovanni, 336 

San Michele, 337 

San Romano, 337 

Tomb of Ilaria, 334 

Tomb of St. Zita, 337 

Torre dei Guinigi, 339 

Volto Santo, 334 
Luini, 122 



368 



Index 



Macalmont, 212 
Machiavelli, 213, 252 
Madonna delle Carceri (Prato), 

319 
Madonna dell' Urailta (Pistoja), 

326 
Maiano, 213 
Maiano, Benedetto da, 81, 91, 

io6, 142, 150, 159, 184, 195 
Malmantiie, 233 
Mann, Horace, 254 
Mannelli, 165 
Manni, Giannicola, 173 
Mantegna, 119 
Manzuoli da S. Friano, 67 
Mark Twain, 18, 255 
Marketing, 30 
Marsili, 155 
Martelli, 195 
Masaccio, 92, 133 
Masolino, 92, 124 
Matsys, 2, 116 
Medici, 211 
Melozzo da Forli, 122 
Memmi, Simone, 108 
Mercato Nuovo, 232, 239, 242 
Mercato Vecchio, 240, 241 
Michelangelo, 16, 79, 92, 108, 

110, u6, 121, 125, 129, 131, 

132, 133. 141. 147, 156, 218, 

221, 252 
Michelozzo, 85, 100, 102, 140, 

150, 211, 220, 229, 321 
Millais, Ii6 
Milton, 252 
Mino da Fiesole, 91, 97, 99, 150, 

184, 193, 210, 321 
Misericordia, 86 
Moggiona, 307 
Monaco, Lorenzo, 93, 120 
Monte San Miniato, 215 
Morgan, 136 
Mozzi, 166, 212 
Murillo, 130 

Museums and Galleries: 
Accademia, 130 



Museums and Galleries: 

Archeological Museum, 240, 

256 
Duomo Museum, 82 
Pitti, 127 
Uffizi, 113 

Ognissanti, 94, 172 
Olive oil making, 282 
Olivetani, 70 
Or San Michele, 95 
Orcagna, 95, 105, 147, 225 

Palazzo Vecchio, 138 

Pandolfino, 162 

Paolo Veronese, 122 

Parigi, 154 

Parker, Theo., 255 

Perugino, 102, 122, 124, 128, 134, 

173, 181 
Piazza del Duomo, 73, 243 

di San Salvi, 170 

di Santa Trinita, 160, 164 

della Signoria, 139, 244 

Vittorio Emanuele, 239 
Piazzale Michelangelo, 217, 2i8 
Pinturrichio, 124 
Pisa, 340 

Baptistry, 344 

Campo Santo, 345 

Chiesa di Santa Maria della 
Spina, 342 

Duomo, 342 

Hunger Tower, 341 

Leaning Tower, 342 

Piazza dei Cavalieri, 341 

Piazza del Duomo, 342 

Ponte di Mezzo, 342 
Pisano, Andrea, 84 
Pisano, Giovanni, 321, 325, 

344 
Pisano, Niccolo, 344 
Pistoja, 323 
Baptistry, 328 

Chiesa di Giovanni Fuorcivi- 
tas, 325 



Index 



369 



Pistoja: 

Chiesa di Madonna dell' 
Umilta, 326 

Chiesa di Sant' Andrea, 325 

Chiesa di Sant' San Francesco, 
326 

Duomo, 326 

Ospedale del Ceppo, 329 

Palazzo Communale, 328 

Palazzo Pretorio, 328 

Torre del Podesta, 328 
Pitti, 127, 139, 154 
Poggio Gherardo, 213 
Poggio Imperiale, 215 
Pollaiuolo, Antonio del, 125, 150 
Pollaiuolo, Piero del, 125 
Ponte Carraja, 247 

alle Grazie, 4 

Santa Trinita, 8 

Vecchio, 6 
Poppi, 302 
Porta Romana, 215 

San Niccolo, 201, 215 
Porzuincola, 17, 70 
Prato, 315 

Chiesa di Madonna delle 
Cerceri, 319 

Cloisters of San Francesco, 
321 

Duomo, 321 

Palazzo Pretorio, 320 

Pulpit of Donatello and 
Michelozzo, 321 

Shrine of Via Santa Marghe- 
rita, 323 

Quaratese, 162 

Quercia, Jacopo della, 150, 171, 
333, 337 

Raphael, 116, 122, 123, 124, 128, 

129, 130, 162, 173 
Rembrandt, 129 
Restaurants and cafes, lo 
Riccardi, 157 
Ridolfo, 165 



Robbia, Andrea della, 67, 149, 

228, 319 
Robbia, Giovanni della, 329 
Robbia, Luca della, 81, 83, 86, 

91, 94, 220, 228, 313 
Rogers, Samuel, 254 
Rose, Villa, 230 
Rossellino, Antonio, 65, 69, 99, 

150, 185, 191, 220, 321 
Rossellino, Bernardo, 65, 69, 99, 

104, 150, X85, 191, 327 
Rovezzano, Benedetto da, 91, 93, 

97, 147, 164, 169, 185, 197, 

288 
Rubens, 116, 122 
Rucellai, 160 
Ruggieri, 154 

Salembeni, 164 
Salvini, 19 

San Domenico di Fiesole, 210 
San Francesco (Prato), 321 
San Frediano (Lucca), 336 
San Giovanni (Lucca), 336 
San Giovanni Battista, 83 
San Giovanni Fuorcivitas (Pis- 
toja), 325 
San Lorenzo, 108 
San Marco, 173, 175 
San Martino a Maiano, 213 
San Michele (Lucca), 337 
San Miniato, 215, 219 
San Niccolo, 201, 215 
San Romano (Lucca), 337 
San Salvatore al Monte, 219 
San Salvi, 169 
Sansovino, Jacopo, 150 
Sant' Ambrogio, 97 
Sant' Andrea (Pistoja), 325 
Sant' Apollonia, 172 
Sant' Onofrio, 173 
Santa Croce, 98 
Santa Maria a Settignano, 66 
Santa Maria a Vincigliata, 

204 
Santa Maria del Fiore, 83 



370 



Index 



Santa Maria del Sasso (Casen- 

tino), 311 
Santa Maria della Spina (Pisa), 

342 
Santa Maria Maddalena dei 

Pazzi, i8i 
Santa Maria Novella, 103 
Santa Trinita, 93 
Santi Apostoli, 97, 248 
Santissima Annunziata, loi 
Santo Spirito, loi 
Santo Stefano, 164 
Sarto, Andrea del, 102, 116, 128, 

129, 134, 169, 182, 344 
Savonarola, 252 

in San Marco, 179, i8i 

prison cell of, 142 
Scalzi, 182 
Segaloni, 91 
Servants, 30 
Serristori, i66 

Settignano, Desiderio da, 64, 67, 
93> 99. 109, 149, 150, 184, 189 
Settignano, 61 

Church of the Frati Olivetani, 
70 

Desiderio, 64 

Piazza Niccolo Tommaseo, 66 

Rossellini, 65, 69 

Santa Maria, 66 

Statue of Septimus Severus, 67 

Tram, 61 

Villa Capponcino, 70 

Villa Chiesa, 70 

Villa Gamberaia, 69 

Villa Verse, 69 
Shops and Shopping, 258 
Signa, 231 

Signorelli, Luca, 124, 134 
Signorini, Giovanni, 102, 137 
Silk growing, 275 
Smollett, 254 
Sodoma, 344 
Sogliani, 177 
Spagnoletto, 122 
Spence, 212 



Spezeria, 182 

Spini, 160 

Streets, life of the, 236 

Strozzi, 158 

Sustermans, 128, 130 

Theaters, 250 

Titian, ii6, 119, 120, 122, 124, 

129, 130 
Torre dei Barbadori, 165 
Torre dei Bardi, 166 
Torre del Gallo, 217 
Torre dei Gandi, 205 
Torre dei Girolami, 164 
Torre dei Lotti, 165 
Torre dei Marsili, 165 
Torre San Niccolo, 201, 215 
Torre Vincigliata, 201, 203 
Torrigiani, 166 
Trollope, T. A., 253 
Trollope, Mrs. T. G., 253 

Uccello, Paolo, 8i, 106, i2t, 125 

Uffizi, 113 

Ugo da Siena, 95 

Ussi, 136 

Vallombrosa, 287 

Van Dyck, n6, 122 

Vasari, 80, 81, 124, 142, 326 

Veronese, Paolo, 122 

Verrochio, A., 124, 141, 150 

Vespucci, Amerigo, 253 

Verse, Villa, 68 

Viale dei Colli, 217 

Viale Machiavelli, 217 

Viale Michelangelo, 217 

Villas, 15, 211-214 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 116, i2i, 141 

Vincigliata, 201 

Viviani, 18 

Volto Santo, 334 

Walpole, Horace, 254 

Watts, 116 

Wine making, 279 

Zucchero, 8i 



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